Fwd: Join the Challenge: TOPx, LymeX, and AI Innovation with $2.5 Million in Prizes
Kristen Honey
Happy Birthday, America! On this Independence Day, we celebrate our shared spirit of liberty, ingenuity, and unity that brings us all together. ♥️🤍💙🇺🇸
The July 4th unites us — and U.S. Open Data and TOPx keep uniting us too. Join us and please share widely!
Begin forwarded message:From: "Honey, Kristen (OS/ONC)" <Kriste...@hhs.gov>Subject: Fw: Join the Challenge: TOPx, LymeX, and AI Innovation with $2.5 Million in PrizesDate: July 4, 2026 at 11:13:04 AM EDTTo: Kristen Honey <kriste...@gmail.com>From: For OS announcements to all of HHS <HHS-NE...@LIST.NIH.GOV> on behalf of HHS News Do Not Reply (OS/ASPA) <DoNotRepl...@HHS.GOV>
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2026 11:57 AM
To: HHS-NE...@LIST.NIH.GOV <HHS-NE...@LIST.NIH.GOV>
Subject: Join the Challenge: TOPx, LymeX, and AI Innovation with $2.5 Million in PrizesU.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled a sweeping plan to combat Lyme disease and advance treatment for millions of Americans living with Lyme disease, Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS, the “meat allergy”), Long COVID, and other complex chronic conditions that are often invisible illnesses. As part of this effort, HHS launched up to $2.5 million across three TOPx and LymeX innovation challenges and a national call to action.TOPx HHS Tech Sprint for AI and Invisible Illness
Up to $2,000,000 in prizes
The TOPx HHS Tech Sprint for AI and Invisible Illness, a national innovation challenge and prize competition with up to $2,000,000 in cash prizes, in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the LymeX Innovation Accelerator, and the Federal CDO Council.
- Challenge Question: How might we use U.S. Open Data and AI to turn fragmented signals into trusted insights, so people living with Lyme disease, Long COVID, and other complex chronic conditions are believed earlier, diagnosed faster, and supported with care that works?
Inspired by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Opportunity Project (TOP) model, TOPx is a fast-paced technology sprint that brings together government, industry, academia, nonprofits, and the public to build digital-first solutions using open data and AI. The effort advances the President’s Management Agenda priority to deliver secure, digital-first services built for real people while eliminating data silos across government and advancing HHS priorities.
Participants will compete for up to $2,000,000 in prizes by using U.S Open Data and AI to develop tools and insights that address:
TOPx Focus Areas
- Lyme Innovation: No one should suffer years of uncertainty from a preventable tickborne infection—so how might we use U.S. Open Data and AI to detect earlier, diagnose faster, and coordinate care to improve outcomes?
- Invisible Illness: What we don’t measure, we don’t treat—and women are disproportionately affected—so how might we use U.S. Open Data and AI to make invisible illness visible and drive faster diagnosis, better care, and real-world impact?
- Cost of Illness: Patients and families carry the burden in silence—so how might we use U.S. Open Data and AI to quantify the full impact and generate insights that make costs visible, measurable, and impossible to ignore?
Deadline: TOPx submissions due June 30, 2026
Learn more and participate
https://invisibleillness.crowdicity.com/hubbub/communitypage/23464
The TOPx HHS Tech Sprint is led by HHS in collaboration with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health,LymeX Innovation Accelerator, and the Federal CDO Council’s Data-Driven Government Working Group.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________LymeX Healthathon Innovation Sprint
Up to $250,000 in prizes
The LymeX Healthathon Innovation Sprint is a non-technical innovation challenge and prize competition with up to $250,000 in cash prizes.
- Challenge Question: How might we turn the lived experiences of people with Lyme and tickborne diseases into shared stories and actionable insights that strengthen peer-to-peer learning, surface community-driven signals, and help patients navigate care now?
The LymeX Healthathon invites patients, caregivers, clinicians, advocates, and communities to share experiences and ideas that improve care, strengthen peer learning, and inform future action.
Participants can contribute:
- Personal stories and lived experience
- Insights into the biggest challenges facing patients
- Ideas that help others navigate care
- Treatment experiences and lessons learned submitted to CURE ID
No technical background is required.
Deadline: Healthathon submissions due August 7, 2026
Learn more and participate
https://lymex.crowdicity.com/hubbub/communitypage/23460
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________LymeX Visible Voices Prize
Up to $250,000 in prizes
The LymeX Visible Voices Prize is a national innovation challenge and prize competition with up to $250,000 in cash prizes in collaboration with the LymeX Innovation Accelerator. It aims to make Lyme disease diagnosis clearer, more transparent, and easier to understand.
- Challenge Question: How might we make Lyme and other tickborne disease diagnoses more visible and transparent so patients and clinicians can understand and act on complex information—and learn from real voices?
This is the first LymeX prize competition open to the U.S. public since 2022—inviting patients, caregivers, clinicians, educators, designers, researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and innovators nationwide to help improve understanding of Lyme and tickborne disease diagnosis and testing landscape. Participants may develop:
- Plain-language resources that explain Lyme testing and emerging diagnostic technologies.
- Educational materials for patients, families, and caregivers.
- Tools that improve clinician-patient communication and decision-making.
- Solutions that translate lived experience into insights and action.
Deadline: Prize submissions due July 31, 2026
Learn more and participate
https://www.lymexvisiblevoicesprize.com/
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Questions? Email LymeInn...@hhs.gov
Please share widely. Join us!
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Kristen Honey
Deadline: TOPx submissions due July 15, 2026