As part of the activities of our Epistemonikos Patient Community, during the months of July and August, we held the first Desafío Laboratoria, organized in collaboration with this women's education institution in the digital development field.

This challenge is a joint initiative of Epistemonikos and Laboratoria, benefiting patient organizations, users, and caregivers who are members of our Epistemonikos Patient Community. The students, who need to complete their study milestones, can do so by contributing to the causes of these institutions.

In this first challenge, the students of the 9th Generation of UX and Front-End development worked in teams to undertake projects that addressed the needs of six of our member organizations in the Patient Community. Thus, the students had an initial meeting with the representatives of each institution, where they could identify initial needs and determine the type of project that would be developed for each case.

For a little over 2 weeks, the students worked together with the members of their assigned organizations to define and develop the solutions, which they presented on a grand Demo Day on August 12.

From complete websites to content and accessibility improvements, each team worked on what each organization needed most to enhance the development of their cause. For the SVKH Association, dedicated to supporting families and patients with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada Syndrome, this was a "great opportunity to improve and help make our website a reference for raising awareness of this disease" as stated by their leadership. Meanwhile, the team from the Rare Diseases Federation FENPOF expressed gratitude for the dedication and knowledge provided by the Laboratoria students.

Always focusing on what can be worked on and improved in the digital realm, the different projects aimed to enhance aspects such as content, accessibility, the visualization of the organizations' work, in some cases, the collaborative aspect of the institution (as with the federations); also creating spaces to raise funds, improving the information offering, generating tools to collect information from users and provide necessary resources such as data, tips, specialist information, among other aspects that facilitate the lives of patients and users in general.

The organizations that participated in this first challenge were: Rare Diseases Federation FENPOF, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada Syndrome Association, Otras Miradas Foundation, Me Muevo Foundation, and DSG-Duschenne Foundation.

From Epistemonikos, our CEO, Marcelo Pérez Antivilo, stated "this project is of utmost importance to us because it is a concrete and firm step in our efforts to empower patient organizations, not only through training on evidence-based topics but also through the support we can provide in collaboration with other institutions that have much to contribute. Civil society is built in this way, and it is important to look after organizations in a comprehensive and collaborative manner."