A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa team won the Best Novelty and Impact Award at an international hackathon for a project designed to transform how community health workers (CHWs) support patients during and after remote check-ins.
The winning project, “Aurion CHW Compassion Kit,” acts as a “digital co-pilot,” utilizing speech analysis and artificial intelligence to flag possible signs of hidden distress. The system analyzes both what a patient says and how it is said—through the tone and pacing of a patient’s speech—to detect possible signs of emotional or mental distress and sends a discreet alert to the CHW along with a context aware suggestion to guide a more supportive response.
The goal of Aurion is to reduce missed emotional cues and workload of CHWs so that they can focus more on giving people the care they need. Beyond real-time support, the tool streamlines post-conversation administrative workflows. The tool is designed to reduce post-conversation paperwork for CHWs by about 70% by automatically filling out forms for them.
The UH Mānoa team included:
- Akib Sadmanee (PhD student in computer science and a master’s graduate)
- Quang Loc Lam (PhD student in information technology management and a master’s graduate in economics)
- Fahim Yasir (UH Cancer Center data systems analyst and a master’s graduate in electrical and computer engineering)
“We wanted to create something that could make a real difference, especially here in Hawaiʻi,” Sadmanee said. “Tools like this have the potential to improve care in communities where access and distance can be real challenges.”
The hackathon was held December 5–6, at the UH Mānoa Campus Center, and was part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding (ASRU) Workshop held December 6 to December 10 at the Hyatt Regency, Waikīkī. The event brought together students, researchers and professionals to develop solutions to real-world challenges in speech and language technology.
The team presented its work during the main ASRU 2025 program verbally in front of judges and also as a poster to the general audience, and received a certificate of achievement.
