Al Hilal Hospital in Muharraq recently hosted the Inter-School Social Entrepreneurship Challenge to commemorate World Hypertension Day.
The initiative encouraged students to create public health innovations, challenging them to develop functional, actionable healthcare models beyond conventional theoretical reports.
The event was also a professional forum for students and healthcare professionals to address hypertension, a critical global health concern.
Participating schools included Bahrain Indian School, New Millennium School, Creativity Private School, Janabiya, Pakistan School, Isa Town, Indian School Bahrain, Asian School, New Indian School, Bangladesh School Bahrain, Quality Education School and New Horizon School.
Student teams with the project presentations
MP Mohamed Hussain Al Janahi attended the event as the chief guest, in the presence of Al Hilal Healthcare Group executive leadership team, including chief executive officer Dr Sharath Chandran, vice president Asif Mohammed, finance manager Sahal Jamaludeen, and Muharraq branch head and group quality manager Franco Francis.
Project submissions underwent a rigorous formal evaluation by medical adjudicators, including Internal Medicine consultant Dr Rahul Abbas and medical practitioner Dr Ameera Ameer.
Asian School students won first place, receiving a BD100 cash prize, an official merit trophy, certificates and corporate gift hampers.
The winning team included Nambirajan Gosakan from Grade 8, Haya Mariyam Paravath from Grade 9 and Zoya Ahmed from Grade 10. The team created an agile, multi-sided digital platform using Large Language Models (LLMs) and Artificial Intelligence tools.
The healthcare prototype included a patient self-help module for proactive daily management, remote monitoring module for tracking community health metrics and integrated physician dashboard to streamline clinical oversight.
New Horizon School took second place, receiving a BD50 cash prize, merit trophy, certificates and corporate gift hampers.
“When this initiative was conceptualised, our objective was to mandate practical, solution-oriented frameworks over standard academic literature,” Dr Chandran added. “The calibre of technical execution demonstrated by these students was exemplary. As the largest private healthcare provider in Bahrain, our long-term operational strategy focuses on the development of an AI-native healthcare delivery infrastructure driven by agentic AI.
“Cultivating tech-oriented youth capabilities is essential to driving systemic innovation in patient care. Given the definitive success of this exhibition, Al Hilal Healthcare Group intends to establish this challenge as a permanent fixture on the annual academic calendar for schools throughout the kingdom.”
Mr Mohammed also announced that the hospital was offering complimentary pediatric consultations to the student bodies of all the participating schools, until August this year.
Incidently, the worldwide prevalence of high blood pressure in children and adolescents nearly doubled between 2000 and 2020, recent research shows, with obesity potentially driving the increase.
In 2000, about 3.2 per cent of children had hypertension. By 2020, the prevalence had increased to more than 6.2pc of children and adolescents under age 19, affecting 114 million young people around the world, according to a report in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
The study also found that an additional 8.2pc of children and adolescents have blood pressure levels higher than normal but do not yet meet the criteria for hypertension.
Obesity may be a substantial driver of the increase in childhood hypertension, the data suggests.
Nearly 19pc of children and adolescents living with obesity were hypertensive, compared to less than 3pc of children and adolescents considered to be at a healthy weight.
Obesity can cause other health problems, such as insulin resistance and changes in blood vessels, which make it harder to keep blood pressure within a healthy range, the authors noted.
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