I showed up with a simple hypothesis: if I could automate the most painful part of a VA claim inside a weekend, I could keep doing it for every veteran who uploads a PDF on Monday.
Why the AWS Lambda Hackathon mattered to me
Veterans kept telling me: “I have the evidence, but I can’t get through the paperwork.” The hackathon forced me to pressure-test whether the pipeline could keep up with the real-world mix of handwritten notes, scans, and hospital discharge summaries.
What I wanted to prove:
- The AI-assisted claims review could scale beyond a pilot group.
- The ingestion pipeline could hold up under load.
- The output stayed explainable enough to be useful in a real claim conversation.
Inside the submission: AWS-powered from edge to evidence
I anchored every workflow in AWS so a reviewer could trace a straight line from upload to rating estimate:
- AWS Lambda + API Gateway orchestrated uploads, OCR, and prompt execution without servers to babysit.
- Amazon Textract handled OCR on uneven scans before I normalized data in RDS.
- Amazon Bedrock ran RAG-style reasoning that maps symptoms to 38 C.F.R. diagnostic code criteria.
- Amazon Cognito, KMS, and S3 enforced encrypted storage and scoped access.
What caught the judges’ attention
Innovation alone doesn’t win hackathons—repeatability does. I focused on:
- Resiliency: end-to-end tracing so reviewers could inspect execution paths in real time.
- Security: encrypted uploads, signed URLs, and least-privilege access patterns.
- Impact: measurable reductions in claim prep time for early testers.
What this means for veterans right now
Hackathon finishes are nice, but the real scoreboard is measured in faster, more confident claim prep. Since shipping the same feature set I demoed, I’ve focused on:
- “Evidence gaps” summaries that highlight what’s missing before a veteran clicks submit.
- A combined ratings calculator that makes VA math predictable.
- Partner tooling so accredited reps can monitor progress without spreadsheet chaos.
“The AWS Lambda Hackathon forced me to prove that a veteran could upload chaotic paperwork and get clarity before the judges’ lunch break. That standard now applies to every release.”
— Chris Lassiter
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