Category: Markers of progress

Welcome to GIANT

This marks the beginning of a shift in the mindset of health technologists in the UK. There have been other events like the NHS EXPO but their purpose was very different.

This conference as illustrated by the programme is going to be very different.

This is exponential medicine conference, UK.

The speakers at this conference are not your usual health technology conference speakers. I am currently sitting in the middle of an audience full of outside thinking, border pushers within healthcare. A mixture of professionals from medical, business and technology spheres all in one place.

This is the infancy of a small silicon valley type community for health technology in London but it has none of the glitz and glamour of exponential medicine conference. This has much more the feeling of the first DEF CON in June 1993 (I was not there, I was only a child then but I imagine this is what it was like.

Barry Shrier, the Founder started by introducing the term moonshots. These are radical innovations which lack any immediate method of becoming financially successful but have enormous potential in the future.

The challenges that face us in healthcare now have never been greater. Therefore, the need for a ‘moonshot’ or more likely many smaller ‘moonshots’ to succeed has equally never been greater.

This is the interface at which they occur:

Barry then talked about the ongoing impact of the NASA program. It is his conviction that we can achieve enormously big goals and we should set out to achieve them for the good of the world. The vision: “To improve the health and wellbeing of humanity, by supporting entrepreneurs and supping healthtech innovation.” He dedicated his presentation to the late Helen Keller. “Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing”. H.Keller

It is the spirit of ‘I can do it’ that will enable us to overcome the enormous challenges that humanity faces.