# **Additional Competition Context — MedGemma Impact Challenge** *Compiled 2026-02-12 from systematic review of Kaggle competition pages, discussions, rules, and HAI-DEF developer documentation.* ### **Key NEW findings not in Clarke spec:** 1. **Submission is a Kaggle Writeup (not a file upload)** — created via the Writeups tab, with a Submit button. One submission per team, can re-submit. 2. **3 pages \= \~1,500 words** (host clarification). With images, aim for 1,000-1,200 words. 3. **12 named judges** — all Google Research/Health AI staff. Profiles documented. 4. **Judged as DEMO, not production** — Yun Liu explicitly said regulatory pathway is NOT the focus. Focus is technical demonstration. 5. **Non-commercial training data is OK** — Daniel Golden confirmed. Model weights release is BONUS not required. 6. **MedGemma 4B has known instruction-following bugs** — leaks system prompts, generates meta-commentary. Risk for Clarke's EHR pipeline. 7. **MedGemma 27B deployment is very hard** — needs \~54GB VRAM, Vertex AI A100 quotas being rejected. Unsloth GGUF quantizations available via Ollama (Q8\_0 \= 31.8GB). 8. **MedGemma 1.5 4B adds EHR understanding** — directly relevant to Clarke. Should use 1.5 not 1.0. 9. **MedASR runs in-browser via ONNX/WebGPU** — someone built it, could strengthen Edge AI track claim. 10. **Only 129 submissions from 5,855 entrants** — competitive field may be smaller than expected. 11. **Google explicitly suggests agentic orchestration** in their MedGemma docs — validates Clarke's architecture. --- ## **1\. Submission Requirements** ### **Submission Format: Kaggle Writeup (NOT a file upload)** * Your submission is a **Kaggle Writeup** attached to the competition's Writeups page — not a PDF or file upload. Create via the "New Writeup" button at: [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/writeups](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/writeups) * After saving your Writeup, click the **"Submit"** button in the top right corner. * Each team gets **one (1) Writeup submission only**, but it can be un-submitted, edited, and re-submitted unlimited times before the deadline. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Submission Instructions section) ### **3-Page Limit Clarification** * The "3 pages" translates to **\~1,500 words** single-spaced. If using charts/images/code blocks, aim for **1,000–1,200 words** of text. * **Source:** Fereshteh Mahvar (Competition Host) at [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/671156](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/671156) ### **Required Links in Writeup** * **Required:** Video (3 min or less) * **Required:** Public code repository * **Bonus:** Public interactive live demo app * **Bonus:** Open-weight Hugging Face model tracing to a HAI-DEF model * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Submission Instructions) ### **Track Selection** * All submissions automatically compete in the **Main Track**. * You may select **one** special award prize (Agentic Workflow, Novel Task, or Edge AI). * If you select multiple special awards, only one will be considered (randomly selected). * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Choosing a Track) ### **Writeup Template (exact structure required)** \#\#\# Project name \#\#\# Your team \[Name members, speciality, role\] \#\#\# Problem statement \[Problem domain \+ Impact potential criteria\] \#\#\# Overall solution \[Effective use of HAI-DEF models criterion\] \#\#\# Technical details \[Product feasibility criterion\] * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Proposed Writeup template) ### **Private Resources Warning** * If you attach a **private** Kaggle Resource to your public Writeup, it will be **automatically made public** after the deadline. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) ### **Submissions Must Be in English** * Confirmed by María Cruz (Kaggle Staff). * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/667660](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/667660) --- ## **2\. Judging Details** ### **Full Judge Panel (12 judges)** | Judge | Role | | ----- | ----- | | Fereshteh Mahvar | Staff Medical Software Engineer & Solutions Architect, Google Health AI | | Omar Sanseviero | Developer Experience Lead, Google DeepMind | | Glenn Cameron | Sr. PMM, Google | | Can "John" Kirmizi | Software Engineer, Google Research | | Andrew Sellergren | Software Engineer, Google Research | | Dave Steiner | Clinical Research Scientist, Google | | Sunny Virmani | Group Product Manager, Google Research | | Liron Yatziv | Research Engineer, Google Research | | Daniel Golden | Engineering Manager, Google Research | | Yun Liu | Research Scientist, Google Research | | Rebecca Hemenway | Health AI Strategic Partnerships, Google Research | | Fayaz Jamil | Technical Program Manager, Google Research | **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Judges section) ### **Evaluation is Through Demonstration Application Lens** * Judges evaluate through the lens of a **demonstration application, NOT a finished product**. * Regulatory pathway, HIPAA/GDPR compliance, etc. are **not the focus** of evaluation criteria — though you may include them. * Quote from Yun Liu (Competition Host): *"The focus of the evaluation criteria is the technical aspects of the demonstration application. Each evaluation criteria will be judged through the lens of a demonstration application and not a finished product."* * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/668280](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/668280) ### **Execution & Communication is the Highest-Weighted Category (30%)** * Judges look for a **"cohesive and compelling narrative across all submitted materials"** that articulates how you meet the rest of the criteria. * Assess: clarity/polish/effectiveness of video demo, completeness/readability of writeup, quality of source code (organization, comments, reusability). * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Evaluation Criteria table) --- ## **3\. Rules & Restrictions** ### **Team Size** * Maximum **5 members** per team. * Team mergers allowed before Team Merger Deadline. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.1) ### **One Submission Per Team** * For Hackathons, each team is allowed **one (1) Submission**. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.2) ### **Winner License: CC BY 4.0** * Winning submissions must be licensed under **CC BY 4.0** (code and demos). * For generally commercially available software you used but don't own, you don't need to grant that license. * For input data or pretrained models with incompatible licenses used to generate your winning solution, you **don't need to grant** open source license for that data/model. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.5) ### **Non-Commercial Data is Allowed for Training** * Using public, research-only / non-commercial external datasets during development is **permitted**. * Participation in a Kaggle challenge is **not considered commercial use**. * Releasing final model weights is a **bonus, not a requirement**. * Daniel Golden (Competition Host) quote: *"You are permitted to use data and other code sources during development that are governed under other, potentially more restrictive licenses."* * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/671596](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/671596) ### **External Data & Tools** * External data allowed if **publicly available and equally accessible** to all participants at no cost, or meets the "Reasonableness Standard". * Use of HAI-DEF and MedGemma subject to **HAI-DEF Terms of Use**: [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/terms](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/terms) * Automated ML tools (AutoML, H2O, etc.) are permitted with appropriate licensing. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.6) ### **HAI-DEF Terms Key Restrictions** * **"Clinical Use"** (diagnosis/treatment of patients) requires Health Regulatory Authorization — this doesn't apply to a demo/competition context. * HAI-DEF source code licensed under **Apache 2.0**. * Models are free for research and commercial use. * **Source:** [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/terms](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/terms) ### **Mandatory HAI-DEF Model Usage** * Use of **at least one HAI-DEF model** (such as MedGemma) is **mandatory**. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Effective use of HAI-DEF models criterion) ### **Eligibility** * Must be 18+, registered on Kaggle, not resident of sanctioned countries. * Competition Entities (Google, Kaggle employees) can participate but **cannot win prizes**. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.7, 3.1) ### **Winner's Obligations** * Deliver final model's software code \+ documentation. * Code must be capable of generating the winning submission. * Must describe resources required to build/run. * For hackathons, deliverables are as described on the competition website (may not be software code). * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.8) ### **No Cloud Credits Provided** * Multiple competitors asked about GCP credits / Colab compute — no response from organizers confirming any credits. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/667660](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/667660) --- ## **4\. Winning Patterns & Insights from Discussions** ### **Focus on Demonstration, Not Production** * The organizers repeatedly emphasize this is about **demonstration applications** with impact potential, not production-ready systems. Keep the writeup high-level; use the video to convey concepts. * *"Less is more\! You should take advantage of the video to convey most of the concepts and keep the write-up as high level as possible."* * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Submission Instructions) ### **Storytelling is Explicitly Scored** * Problem Domain criterion explicitly mentions **"storytelling"** alongside clarity of problem definition. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Evaluation Criteria) ### **Use HAI-DEF Models "to Their Fullest Potential"** * The criterion asks whether your application uses HAI-DEF models *"to their fullest potential, where other solutions would likely be less effective"*. * Clarke's multi-model approach (MedASR \+ MedGemma 4B \+ MedGemma 27B) is well-aligned with this. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Evaluation Criteria) ### **Agentic Orchestration is Officially Suggested** * Google's own MedGemma documentation explicitly suggests agentic orchestration: using MedGemma as a tool within an agentic system, coupled with FHIR generators/interpreters, Gemini Live for bidirectional audio, or Gemini 2.5 Pro for function calling. * MedGemma can **"parse private health data locally before sending anonymized requests to centralized models"** — directly supports Clarke's privacy-preserving architecture. * **Source:** [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medgemma](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medgemma) ### **Competition Scale: Low Submissions So Far** * 5,855 entrants but only **129 submissions** (134 participants, 129 teams) as of Feb 12 2026\. * This suggests many entrants haven't submitted yet — the field may be smaller than expected. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/overview) (Participation stats) ### **MedGemma 1.5 is the Latest Version** * MedGemma 1.5 4B (google/medgemma-1.5-4b-it) was released in Jan 2026 with improved capabilities: * High-dimensional medical imaging (CT, MRI, histopathology) * Longitudinal medical imaging (chest X-ray time series) * Medical document understanding (structured extraction from lab reports) * EHR understanding (interpretation of text-based EHR data) * Improved medical text reasoning accuracy * **Source:** [https://research.google/blog/next-generation-medical-image-interpretation-with-medgemma-15-and-medical-speech-to-text-with-medasr/](https://research.google/blog/next-generation-medical-image-interpretation-with-medgemma-15-and-medical-speech-to-text-with-medasr/) --- ## **5\. Technical Resources** ### **Official Notebooks & Code** | Resource | URL | | ----- | ----- | | Quick start (Hugging Face) | [https://github.com/google-health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/quick\_start\_with\_hugging\_face.ipynb](https://github.com/google-health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/quick_start_with_hugging_face.ipynb) | | Quick start (Model Garden) | [https://github.com/google-health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/quick\_start\_with\_model\_garden.ipynb](https://github.com/google-health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/quick_start_with_model_garden.ipynb) | | Fine-tuning with LoRA | [https://github.com/google-health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/fine\_tune\_with\_hugging\_face.ipynb](https://github.com/google-health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/fine_tune_with_hugging_face.ipynb) | | Reinforcement Learning | [https://github.com/Google-Health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/reinforcement\_learning\_with\_hugging\_face.ipynb](https://github.com/Google-Health/medgemma/blob/main/notebooks/reinforcement_learning_with_hugging_face.ipynb) | | MedGemma GitHub repo | [https://github.com/google-health/medgemma](https://github.com/google-health/medgemma) | | HAI-DEF developer forum | [https://discuss.ai.google.dev/c/hai-def/](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/c/hai-def/) | ### **MedASR Resources** | Resource | URL | | ----- | ----- | | MedASR model (HuggingFace) | [https://huggingface.co/google/medasr](https://huggingface.co/google/medasr) | | MedASR developer docs | [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medasr/](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medasr/) | | MedASR in-browser (ONNX/WebGPU) | [https://medasr.ainergiz.com/](https://medasr.ainergiz.com/) | | MedASR in-browser source | [https://github.com/ainergiz/medasr-web](https://github.com/ainergiz/medasr-web) | | MedASR MLX (Apple Silicon) | Discussion: [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/672879](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/672879) | | MedASR ONNX export script | In ainergiz/medasr-web repo at /scripts/export\_onnx.py | ### **MedGemma 27B GGUF Quantizations (Unsloth)** * Available at: [https://huggingface.co/unsloth/medgemma-27b-it-GGUF/tree/main](https://huggingface.co/unsloth/medgemma-27b-it-GGUF/tree/main) * Can run locally via Ollama: ollama run hf.co/unsloth/medgemma-27b-it-GGUF:Q8\_0 (31.8 GB) * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/673091](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/673091) ### **HuggingFace Collections** | Collection | URL | | ----- | ----- | | MedGemma release | [https://huggingface.co/collections/google/medgemma-release-680aade845f90bec6a3f60c4](https://huggingface.co/collections/google/medgemma-release-680aade845f90bec6a3f60c4) | | HAI-DEF collection | [https://huggingface.co/collections/google/health-ai-developer-foundations-hai-def](https://huggingface.co/collections/google/health-ai-developer-foundations-hai-def) | | Community fine-tunes | [https://huggingface.co/models?other=or:base\_model:finetune:google/medgemma-4b-it,base\_model:finetune:google/medgemma-4b-pt,base\_model:finetune:google/medgemma-27b-it,base\_model:finetune:google/medgemma-27b-text-it](https://huggingface.co/models?other=or:base_model:finetune:google/medgemma-4b-it,base_model:finetune:google/medgemma-4b-pt,base_model:finetune:google/medgemma-27b-it,base_model:finetune:google/medgemma-27b-text-it) | ### **Key Blog Posts** | Title | URL | | ----- | ----- | | MedGemma 1.5 \+ MedASR announcement | [https://research.google/blog/next-generation-medical-image-interpretation-with-medgemma-15-and-medical-speech-to-text-with-medasr/](https://research.google/blog/next-generation-medical-image-interpretation-with-medgemma-15-and-medical-speech-to-text-with-medasr/) | | Original MedGemma blog | [https://research.google/blog/medgemma-our-most-capable-open-models-for-health-ai-development/](https://research.google/blog/medgemma-our-most-capable-open-models-for-health-ai-development/) | | HAI-DEF launch blog | [https://research.google/blog/helping-everyone-build-ai-for-healthcare-applications-with-open-foundation-models/](https://research.google/blog/helping-everyone-build-ai-for-healthcare-applications-with-open-foundation-models/) | | AskCPG concept integration | [https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/sharing-our-product-integration-with-medgemma-askcpg/94556](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/sharing-our-product-integration-with-medgemma-askcpg/94556) | ### **Notable Competition Notebooks (for inspiration)** | Notebook | Theme | | ----- | ----- | | MedFlow AI (24 upvotes) | Top-voted notebook | | MedGemma Navigator: DICOMweb ↔ FHIR (16 upvotes) | FHIR/DICOM integration — similar to Clarke's EHR focus | | MedGemma Medical AI Chatbot \+ 5 Test Scenarios (14 upvotes) | Medical chatbot with test scenarios | | MedAssist Edge Offline Medical AI (7 upvotes) | Offline/edge deployment | | Spasht AI — Bridging India's "Last Mile" Health Gap (6 upvotes) | Community health focus | | RadAssist-MedGemma: AI Radiology Triage Assistant (4 upvotes) | Radiology triage | | CRSA — Clinical Reasoning Stability Auditor | Reasoning evaluation | **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/code](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/code) --- ## **6\. Gaps & Risks** ### **MedGemma 4B Instruction Following Issues** * Multiple competitors report MedGemma 4B (medgemma-1.5-4b-it) **leaking system prompts, generating meta-commentary, and outputting chain-of-thought training artifacts** (critique responses, constraint checklists, special tokens). * One user reports running with Ollama locally works well; the issues may be prompt/framework dependent. * **Risk for Clarke:** If using MedGemma 4B for EHR extraction, we need thorough prompt engineering and output parsing to handle instruction-following failures. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/673091](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/673091) ### **MedGemma 27B Deployment is Extremely Challenging** * Requires \~54GB VRAM — won't run on Apple M3 Max 64GB (MPS buffer limit), won't fit on 2x L4 GPUs (48GB). * Vertex AI A100 quota requests being **rejected by Google**. * Quantized GGUF versions (Unsloth Q8\_0 \= 31.8GB) can run via Ollama on local hardware. * **Risk for Clarke:** The 24-hour build plan assumes MedGemma 27B for letter generation. If deploying on Kaggle/cloud is blocked by GPU quota, we need a fallback (quantized 27B via Ollama, or enhanced 4B with heavy prompt engineering). * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/673091](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/673091) ### **MedGemma 1.5 Only Available as 4B** * MedGemma 1.5 is only released as 4B multimodal. The 27B model is still MedGemma 1 (text-only and multimodal). * **Risk for Clarke:** Clarke spec references "MedGemma 27B" — should clarify we're using MedGemma 1 27B, not 1.5. * **Source:** [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medgemma](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medgemma) ### **No Provided Dataset \= You Must Source Your Own** * Competition provides **zero data**. All data must be sourced externally. * For Clarke: synthetic NHS consultation data or publicly available clinical note datasets needed. Non-commercial academic datasets are acceptable per organizer clarification. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/rules) (Section 2.4) ### **Model Weights Release is Bonus, Not Required** * Releasing fine-tuned model weights on HuggingFace is listed as a **bonus** submission element, not mandatory. * However, it could significantly strengthen the "Effective use of HAI-DEF models" score. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/671596](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/671596) (Daniel Golden's response) ### **EHR/FHIR Understanding is a New MedGemma 1.5 Capability** * MedGemma 1.5 4B specifically adds **"EHR understanding for the interpretation of text-based EHR data"** — this directly supports Clarke's EHR navigation component. * Consider using MedGemma 1.5 4B (instead of 1.0 4B) for the EHR extraction pipeline. * **Source:** [https://research.google/blog/next-generation-medical-image-interpretation-with-medgemma-15-and-medical-speech-to-text-with-medasr/](https://research.google/blog/next-generation-medical-image-interpretation-with-medgemma-15-and-medical-speech-to-text-with-medasr/) ### **Official Discord Exists But Not Monitored by Staff** * Kaggle Discord at [http://discord.gg/kaggle](http://discord.gg/kaggle) — additional discussion channel, but organizers don't monitor it. * **Source:** [https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/667660](https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/med-gemma-impact-challenge/discussion/667660) --- ## **Pages That Could Not Be Accessed** | URL | Issue | | ----- | ----- | | Kaggle discussion threads via web\_fetch | JS-rendered, required browser automation | | Kaggle Code notebooks (content) | Would require login/browser to read notebook code cells | | AskCPG concept app details | [https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/sharing-our-product-integration-with-medgemma-askcpg/94556](https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/sharing-our-product-integration-with-medgemma-askcpg/94556) — not fetched | | MedGemma model card | [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medgemma/model-card](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medgemma/model-card) — not fetched | | MedASR developer docs | [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medasr/](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/medasr/) — not fetched | | HAI-DEF Terms of Use (full) | [https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/terms](https://developers.google.com/health-ai-developer-foundations/terms) — truncated at Section 3 |