NEWS

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Siriraj Dean Chart the Future of Medical AI at Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2026

Trustworthy, accountable AI takes centre stage

1,100+ applications from 35 nationalities  •  400+ conference attendees  •  Wello Food wins a place in the MIT BeyondHack Accelerator

The Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, and MIT Hacking Medicine announced the continuation of their long-term Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine collaboration on stage at the main conference on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at Grande Centre Point Lumphini, Bangkok. The announcement was made by Prof. Keerati Chareancholvanich, MD, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital; Mr. Zen Chu, Faculty Director, MIT Hacking Medicine; and Mr. Lalit Mehta, Co-Director, MIT Hacking Medicine, joined by Prof. Uraiwan Panich, MD, PhD, Deputy Dean for Innovation, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, and Mr. Thanasak Hoontrakul, Program Director (Thailand), Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine.

The announcement closed five days of Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2026, held under the theme “Agentic Healthcare: From Models to Trustworthy Medicine.” The week began with a hackathon at Siriraj Hospital on 16–18 October, where doctors, engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs worked on real clinical problems in cardiovascular disease and cancer. More than 1,100 people from 35 nationalities applied, and more than 200 were selected. An LLM-athon workshop on 19 October at the Knowledge Exchange Center (KX), King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, led by Dr. Leo Anthony Celi of the MIT Laboratory for Computational Physiology and Harvard Medical School, examined the limits of large language models in Thai–English clinical settings. The week ended with the main conference on 20 October. The collaboration, which began in 2024, is now a long-term partnership.

Prof. Keerati Chareancholvanich said in his opening remarks: “In medicine, being intelligent is not enough. Being accurate is not enough. Being efficient is not enough. A healthcare technology must also be safe, transparent and accountable, and earn the trust of patients. Let us move beyond intelligent models towards trustworthy intelligence.”

The conference also welcomed Prof. Yodchanan Wongsawat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, who delivered a special keynote, “The Next Era of Healthcare: How AI Can Empower a Healthier Society,” on the role of AI and innovation in strengthening Thailand’s health system.

Who is responsible when AI acts? Views from the stage

The central question of the conference: as AI moves from analysis and prediction to planning and acting in patient care, how can hospitals be confident it is safe, who checks it, and who is responsible for the outcome?

  • Prof. Michael V. McConnell of Stanford, who led the MyHeart Counts smartphone study with 50,000 participants and has taken health AI software through FDA clearance: “Our health system is not really designed around prevention. It’s really designed much more around acute care. And the world needs prevention at scale.”

  • Assoc. Prof. Weizhi Ma of Tsinghua University, co-creator of the AI Agent Hospital: “AI doctor agents learn by treating patient agents and reviewing the outcomes. Both successful and unsuccessful cases contribute to their improvement.” After treating virtual patients at more than 100 times the efficiency of human doctors, the AI doctors achieved over 96% accuracy on the MedQA benchmark. These AI doctors are currently undergoing continuous co-evolution with medical physicians in real-world hospitals.

  • Dr. Leo Anthony Celi of MIT and Harvard Medical School, who leads the open MIMIC database used by close to 100,000 people worldwide: “I am for AI. I am against developing AI without a deliberate blueprint. If Thailand focuses on implementing, adopting and continuously iterating on data-sharing policies, that has to come before any AI.”

  • The Fueling the Shift panel on investing in healthtech in the AI era, with Dr. Rebecca Mitchell (Scrub Capital), Dr. Joseph Mocanu (Verge Healthtech Fund), Mr. Zen Chu (MIT Hacking Medicine) and Ms. Nadia Suttikulpanich (Fuchsia Innovation Center, Muang Thai Life Assurance), moderated by Ms. Naranpat Thitipattakul (Disrupt Health Impact Fund), agreed that as AI makes technology easier to build, investors weigh the founder more than the technology. Dr. Joseph Mocanu, who has reviewed more than 3,900 startups, said: “AI has democratised access to technology, so we invest in founders with vision, distribution and trust. After 12 years, I’m surprised to find that I’m now looking for more human than tech in a founder.” Mr. Zen Chu added: “I’ve never seen a company with superior efficacy not get adopted. The beauty of healthcare is that we have real evidence and gold standards.”Speakers also included Prof. W. Eric L. Grimson, Chancellor, MIT; Asst. Prof. Ashley Stein-Merlob of UCLA, a specialist in cardio-oncology; and Asst. Prof. Shenda Hong of the National Institute of Health Data Science, Peking University.

Results

  • Cardiovascular track: 1st Perfu(Vi)sion, 2nd Warfy, 3rd Hearty

  • Oncology track: 1st Cocoon, 2nd CANCEE, 3rd LANA 4.0

  • InterSystems special prize: 1st Heart Voice, 2nd Cocoon, 3rd Airsense

  • Golden Tickets: Ms. Vanichanan Kongkerdlap, Ms. Yada Siripaopradit and Ms. Chatcha Sriwanwit will join MIT Grand Hack in Boston in 2027

  • Si x MIT BeyondHack: from 20 alumni teams who applied, 1st Wello Food (team Eatwellconcept), 2nd OITE:P, 3rd Mind Odyssey

Wello Food is a healthtech startup using the “food-as-medicine” concept to help the aging population and people with chronic disease (kidney, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.) through personalized dietitian-designed meals delivered to their home, paired with an AI Dietitian. The team receives full sponsorship for up to three members to join the four-week MIT BeyondHack Accelerator, followed by a pitch in Boston in early 2027.

The week in numbers

  • 1,100+ hackathon applications from 35 nationalities; more than 200 participants selected

  • 400+ conference attendees from more than 180 organisations, half of them senior leaders from multinational companies, public and private hospitals, and investors

  • Speakers from MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Tsinghua and Peking University

The week in numbers

  • 1,100+ hackathon applications from 35 nationalities; more than 200 participants selected

  • 400+ conference attendees from more than 180 organisations, half of them senior leaders from multinational companies, public and private hospitals, and investors

  • Speakers from MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Tsinghua and Peking University

What comes next in 2027

Mr. Zen Chu, co-founder and Faculty Director of MIT Hacking Medicine, which has run more than 200 hackathons in 30 countries and helped start more than 100 companies, said: “Just this year, there were eight venture-backable startups with good technology, a good business model, good for the patients and good for the doctors. Even without that, it’s training the doctors to see technology in a new way, and training the engineers to understand healthcare. That’s already the win.”

Under this long-term collaboration, at least six participants each year from Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine will go on to MIT programmes in Boston. From 2027 the programme will grow in two ways:

  • Asia’s First Look: commercialisation partner matching for research ready for a deal, from 2027

  • A wider BeyondHack: open to anyone connected to Siriraj — faculty, staff, students and alumni — and to programme mentors, so that stronger teams enter the competition

Thank you to our sponsors and partners

Krungthai Bank, PNF, InterSystems, Muang Thai Life Assurance, National Innovation Agency (NIA), Thanes Group, Bangkok Biz News (Official Media Partner), Knowledge Exchange Center (KX), Oracle, ThaiBev, BJC Big C, Disrupt Health Impact Fund, DataOne Asia, AIS, iNT, PT Energy, Oriverse, Motic and Berlin Pharmaceutical Industries.

Get involved

  • Research teams interested in Asia’s First Look: thanjira@sirirajxmithackmed.com

  • Organisations interested in sponsoring in 2027: thanakhom@sirirajxmithackmed.com

  • More information: www.sirirajxmithackmed.com