4th Global Summit on Circulatory Health

Alberto Abello, PhD, is associate professor at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, where he obtained his doctorate in 2002 and has been working as a lecturer and researcher since then.  He has held research stays at the Universidad de Granada (Spain), Technische Universitat Darmstadt (Germany), Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University (France) and the Universidad de la Republica (Uruguay).  His areas of expertise are Databases, in general, Data Warehousing and Big Data Management. He has coordinated at UPC European Erasmus Mundus programmes, both at the master and PhD levels, as well as H2020 projects and R&D agreements with companies such as Hewlett Packard, Zurich Insurance, SAP or the World Health Organization. He has also participated in more than ten national research projects or networks of excellence.

Ann Aerts has been Head of the Novartis Foundation since January 2013, where she has played a key role in devising new policy recommendations. She has the exciting responsibility of heading an organization committed to exploring innovative solutions to public health problems. The Novartis Foundation has the challenging goals of expanding access to quality healthcare and eliminating diseases such as leprosy and malaria. Before her current role, Ann was Franchise Medical Director Critical Care for Novartis Pharma in Basel and Therapeutic Area Head Cardiovascular and Metabolism in Novartis Pharma Belgium. Prior to joining Novartis, she served as Director of the Lung and Tuberculosis Association in Belgium, as Head of the Health Services Department of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva and was Health Coordinator for the ICRC in several countries. Ann holds a Degree in Medicine and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Leuven, Belgium, as well as a Degree in Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. In 2014, Ann was nominated by PharmaVOICE as one of the 100 Most Inspiring People in the life science industry.

Rilwan Adan is Chief Medical Officer at Baobab Circle, a health technology company. Baobab Circle has developed the award winning Afya Pap mobile phone platform which uses artificial intelligence to provide personalized support for people living with non-communicable diseases across Africa. Baobab Circle works through partnerships with local communities, health service providers, health insurance companies and mobile network operators. Dr Adan has worked in the public and private health sector in Kenya and the UK. She has a keen interest in using technology to increase access and improve patient experience for better outcomes and public health. She is passionate about Global Health, (in particular NCDs and has been active in organizing community outreach screening programs) and the potential technology and innovation can offer to improve overall wellbeing.  Dr. Rilwan also runs the diabetes Center in collaboration with Lions Club, Kenya. She is a member of the Steering group on Women and NCDs facilitated by George institute for Global Health on behalf of WHO (World Health Organization). She is a board member of Gencad international, a Kenyan diaspora led British registered Charity that supports pastoralists communities in Northern Kenya to overcome extreme poverty. She is an executive member (Strategy and planning) of the Kenya Diabetes Study Group. Dr. Rilwan has a degree in Medicine (MBChB) from the University of Nairobi and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Warwick, (UK).  She also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Diabetes from Cardiff University.

David E. Albert is an Oklahoma native. He is a physician, inventor and serial entrepreneur who has developed medical and other life-saving technologies and products over the last 30 years, turning a number of those innovations into tech startups. Today, he is the Founder of AliveCor, Inc., and founder of InnovAlarm, and Lifetone Technology. His previous startups include Corazonix Corp (sold to Arrhythmia Research Technology and Data Critical (sold to GE). Dr. Albert left GE in 2004 as Chief Scientist of GE Cardiology. His latest invention, the Kardia Mobile, became a global sensation via a 4-minute YouTube Video in January 2011 around the Consumer Electronics Show and was featured on local media, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News among many other media outlets. Dr. Albert has 62 issued US patents. He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific abstracts and publications principally in the Cardiology literature. Also, Dr Albert has lectured at the Entrepreneurship programs at the MIT Sloan School and the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Albert graduated with Honors from Harvard College and from Duke University Medical School. Dr. Albert lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and family.

Liz Ashall-Payne is passionate about the opportunities that technology and particularly apps offer to improve health and care efficiencies and outcomes. Liz founded ORCHA, the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Application in 2015, determined to present a way to offer much needed guidance to app developers to help raise app quality, as well as helping the public and professionals to confidently find and apply apps that could genuinely improve public, patient and organisational outcomes.

Adrian Baker is a Senior Manager at the Innovation, Research, and Life Sciences group at NHS England and the Accelerate Access Collaborative, with a focus on making it easier to conduct research in the National Health Service.  He is also Honorary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Healthcare Innovation Research which is a joint venture between Cass Business School and City University.  He previously worked on the artificial intelligence public policy at the British Heart Foundation.   He is the former Head of Health and Social Care at techUK and a current mentor for the Cherie Blair Foundation’s Women in Business program.  His main interests are on policies that encourage the development and spread of emerging technologies.  He was awarded the Colt Doctoral Fellowship and the UCL Impact Award for his PhD research on the diffusion of innovations in the NHS.  Adrian holds a BSc and MSc in Social Policy from the London School of Economics.

Amitava Banerjee is Associate Professor in Clinical Data Science at University College London, and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at University College London Hospitals and Barts Health NHS Trusts. He is a researcher, educator and clinician with interests spanning data science, cardiovascular disease, global health, training and evidence-based healthcare. After qualifying from Oxford Medical School, he trained as a junior doctor in Oxford, Newcastle, Hull and London. His interest in preventive cardiology and evidence-based medicine led to a Masters in Public Health at Harvard(2004/05), an internship at the World Health Organisation(2005) and DPhil in epidemiology from Oxford(2010). He works across two busy tertiary care settings with both inpatient and outpatient commitments. Although he is subspecialised in heart failure, he has ongoing practice in acute general cardiology and a keen interest in the diagnosis and management of atrial fibrillation. Amitava chairs the Emerging Leaders Programme at the World Heart Federation. In addition, he is Trustee of the South Asian Health Foundation, and Deputy Editor at Global Heart journal.

Jeroen Bax is ESC Immediate Past-President (2018-2020), Director of non-invasive imaging and Director of the echo-lab at the Leiden University Medical Center. His main interests include clinical cardiology, heart failure, cardiac resynchronization therapy and the application of all different imaging modalities to these clinical fields. Professor Bax has authored numerous papers and holds several positions in national and international scientific organizations, as well as serving on the editorial boards of many different journals.

Shreya Bhatt is Medic Mobile’s Asia Regional Director. She leads the organization’s digital health programs, partnerships and team across several countries in the Asia region including India, Nepal and Indonesia. She is passionate about development and the potential for technology and innovation to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage. Previously, Shreya worked with organizations such as UNICEF, Teach for India, and Trickle Up to support development programs in education, livelihoods, and socioeconomic empowerment. Shreya transitioned to a career in international development from the private sector, having worked in corporate finance for several years. Shreya holds a BSc in Finance and Management from New York University, and a Master of International Affairs in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University.

Eugene Boadu has more than a decade’s experience working across academia, entrepreneurship, corporate intrapreneurship, and at the interfaces of private enterprise and public administration. He is currently a leader in the operations design and strategy formulation groups in mPedigree Network, a social enterprise building and deploying many innovative technologies for human security, trade standards, and market exchange facilitation, with particular emphasis on anti-counterfeiting, supply chain transformation, predictive analytics, infra-sensors, and brand equity. Trained in Economics and Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon, Boadu is a prolific speaker and trainer, and has headlined multiple global and regional conferences and workshops on four continents, including the Global Entrepreneurship Summit under the auspices of President Barack Obama and The 2016 Ashoka Changemaker Summit.

Sophie Bostock is a Sleep Evangelist and Founder of TheSleepScientist.com, which aims to help more people to benefit from the science of sleep and circadian rhythms. Following degrees in Medicine and Entrepreneurship, Sophie completed a PhD in Psychobiology at University College London (UCL), sponsored by the British Heart Foundation. It was while investigating the links between happiness, cardiovascular disease and work stress that Sophie conducted trials of a mindfulness app. This research led to an interest in sleep as a driver of health and performance – as well as the power of technology for enabling people to transform their own health at scale. Sophie spent 5 years as Innovation Lead at Big Health, the digital medicine company behind online sleep improvement programme, Sleepio.com. Working with research collaborators around the world, Sophie helped the Sleepio team to generate the leading evidence base for any digital therapeutic. Sophie was awarded an NHS Innovation Accelerator Fellowship in recognition of her work in promoting access to Sleepio, which is now provided by the NHS for 1 in 5 adults in the UK. An accident caused by sleep deprivation was the trigger for Sophie to become an independent champion for the importance of sleep. She regularly features as a sleep expert in national media in the UK, most recently in ITV documentary “Why Can’t We Sleep?” (July 2019). Sophie has delivered numerous talks and sleep-related training for organisations in healthcare, sport and corporate settings, as well as talks for TEDx and Talks@Google.

Michael Brainin is President of the World Stroke Organization, Professor and Chair, Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Preventive Medicine Danube University Krems, Austria. He was co-founder of the national stroke unit network and founding president of the Austrian Stroke Society 2003-2006. He was President of the European Stroke Organisation (2012-2014). Currently he is the President of the World Stroke Organisation (2018-2020). He is co-chair of the ESO-WSO 2020 Congress to be held in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Brainin has led the WSO Education Committee 2008-2017 and was editor of the World Stroke Acedemy, a web-based learning platform for the WSO. He chairs the European Master’s Program in Stroke Medicine since 2007. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, edited three textbooks on stroke, and has given more than 1.000 invited lectures. He is Senior Editorial Consultant for ‚Stroke’, Associate Editor of the European Journal of Neurology and member of the editorial boards of Neuroepidemiology, International Journal of Stroke, The European Stroke Journal and The Journal of Neurological Sciences.

Nancy Brown is Chief Executive Officer of the American Heart Association (AHA). The Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives dedicated to ensuring equitable health for all – in the U.S. and around the world. Serving as CEO since 2008, Nancy has elevated the AHA as a global leader in heart disease and stroke science innovation. Under her leadership and 30+ year AHA career, the Association established the first-ever definition of “cardiovascular health” and just announced its bold 2030 global aspiration:  “Together with global and local collaborators, we will equitably increase worldwide healthy life expectancy from 64 to at least 67, by 2030.”

John Frank is Microsoft’s Vice President, EU Government Affairs. In this role, John leads Microsoft’s government affairs teams in Brussels and European national capitals on EU issues. John was previously Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Chief of Staff for Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith based at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond Washington. In this role, he managed several teams including the Law Enforcement and National Security team, the Industry Affairs group, Corporate, Competition Law and Privacy Compliance teams and the department’s technology and business operations team. Prior to joining Microsoft, John Frank practiced law in San Francisco with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Mr. Frank received his A.B. degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and his J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Ben Freedman is Deputy Director Cardiovascular Strategy at Sydney’s Heart Research Institute and Charles Perkins Centre. He is Professor of Cardiology at the University of Sydney and former head of Department of Cardiology Concord Hospital. He is also Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine at Monash University, Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Visiting Professor and Lui Che Woo Distinguished Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.   He was Deputy Dean of Sydney Medical School for 9 years from 2003-12, and received the Faculty’s inaugural Distinguished Service Award in 2012. His major research interest focus is stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, and in particular the role of screening for AF. In 2015 he formed the AF-SCREEN International Collaboration which now has 160 members from 36 countries, including many of the foremost names in AF research, and recently produced an important white paper on screening for AF which he led. He has authored over 220 publications, with over 7,500 citations . In 2002 he was scientific chairman of the successful World Congress of Cardiology. In 2011 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for service to medicine as a clinician, educator and researcher.

Gauden Galea is WHO Representative in China. He was Director of the Division of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Promoting Health through the Life-course of the European Regional Office of WHO. Dr Galea is a public health physician and has worked for WHO since 1998. He previously held posts in Suva, the Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila, and at WHO headquarters in Geneva. Dr Galea is a leading voice on NCDs, active at both national and global levels. He contributed to the development of a national stepwise approach to NCDs, first implemented in the Pacific Islands, and deployed evidenced-based advocacy to link NCDs to the global development agenda, including the 2011 UN High Level Meeting on NCDs. He has helped to generate a renewal of life-course approaches to health promotion and public health; in WHO Europe those efforts have resulted in action plans on child and adolescent health, child maltreatment, women’s health, and an action plan on men’s health in Europe. Dr Galea is widely published and holds a deep personal interest in computer programming and the applications of data science to the practice of public health today.

Junbo Ge is academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences; the chief of cardiology department of Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University; the chief of Shanghai Cardiovascular Clinical Center; the chairman of Shanghai Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases; the president of the First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China; the head of Institutes of Biomedical Sciences；the head of Institute for Pan vascular Medical Research, Fudan University；the chairman of Pan vascular Fund, Fudan University; director of Engineering Research Center for Cardiovascular Devices, Ministry of Education; He was awarded Scholars of the Yangtse River; Elite of science and technology; National Labor Medal; Tan Jiazhen prize in life sciences; the national “Bethune” Medal, etc. He is also the president of Chinese Cardiovascular Association; board member of World Heart Federation; board member of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions; member of the international advisory board of American College of Cardiology. Prof. Ge dedicates to the optimization and innovation of diagnosis and treatment strategy for coronary artery disease and made extraordinary achievements in intravascular ultrasound (IVUS).

Simon Gillespie joined the British Heart Foundation in 2013, following seven years as Chief Executive of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He has a family connection to heart disease, and fundraises and volunteers for the BHF. His early career was in the Royal Navy, including command of HMS Sheffield and advising government ministers. From 2000 to 2004, he was Director of Operations at the Charity Commission. He then moved to become Head of Operations at the Healthcare Commission, where he was responsible for the inspection of NHS and independent healthcare facilities in England. Simon has extensive national and international experience of charity and non-profit governance as a non-executive director, advisor and trustee and is a former President of the European Heart Network. Simon was recently honoured with an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, recognising his services to patients and medical research. Simon was also the only charity CEO to win an Employee’s Choice Award from Glassdoor this year, after being voted one of the top 50 CEOs in the country by employees and volunteers. Simon was also named a 2018 Charity Comms Inspiring Communicator in recognition of his tireless public advocacy of the BHF’s cause.

Charles Gore is the Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool. He took up the post in July 2018 following a career in patient representation and public health advocacy. He was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1995 and cirrhosis in 1998. In 2000 he set up The Hepatitis C Trust in the UK which he ran for 18 years. In 2002 he was treated and cured of the virus. He helped create the European Liver Patients Association and was its first President in 2004. In 2007 he organised a meeting of hepatitis patient organisations from around the world to agree on co-ordinated global action. From this emerged the decision to hold an annual World Hepatitis Day and to create a new NGO, the World Hepatitis Alliance, of which Charles was the President from 2007 until the end of 2017. As a result of advocacy by the Alliance and its members, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted successive viral hepatitis resolutions in 2010, 2014 and 2016, making World Hepatitis Day an official day, celebrated on 28 July every year, and endorsing the first Global Health Sector Strategy on viral hepatitis with the goal of eliminating hepatitis B and C by 2030. In addition to direct advocacy with over 50 Ministries of Health, Charles has led on advising countries on finding sustainable domestic financing for hepatitis programmes, including health system elements such as infection control and blood and injection safety. Charles also sits on a number of national and international advisory bodies, including the WHO Director-General’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee for Viral Hepatitis and has been a member of all the WHO guideline development groups on testing and treating viral hepatitis.

Diederick E. Grobbee, MD, PhD, FESC is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the University Medical Center Utrecht, and founder of the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care (1996), a division of the  University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) currently employing approximately 500 staff, and of Julius Clinical (2008), a full service Academic Clinical Research Organization. He currently acts as the chair of the Center for Circulatory Health at the UMCU governing cardiovascular patient care, research and education. Previous positions include Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, member of the board of Erasmus University Medical Center, and visiting Associate Professor at Harvard University, Boston. He holds honorary appointments in Sydney and Kuala Lumpur. He has been a (principal) investigator in many large-scale epidemiologic studies and randomized intervention trials relating to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular, cardiometabolic, and cardiorenal disease. In addition he works on the principles and methods of treatment research, trial design and data analysis. He is listed in the top 100 global most influential biomedical researchers (Eur J Clin Invest 2013 Dec;43(12):1339-65) and has consistently been ranked as highly cited author by Web of Science over the last decades. Rick Grobbee has been on the editorial boards of several journals and (inter) national scientific, search, and site-visit committees.

Dipak Kalra, PhD, FRCGP, FBCS, is President of the European Institute for Innovation through Health Data and of the European Institute for Health Records. He plays a leading international role in research and development of electronic health record architectures and systems. He has led multiple European projects in these areas, including Horizon 2020 and the IMI programme alongside pharma companies, hospitals and ICT companies. He recently co-led a €16m project on the re-use of EHR information for clinical research, EHR4CR, alongside ten global pharma. He is a partner in another IMI project, EMIF, on the development of a European clinical research platform federating multiple population health and cohort studies. Dipak is Clinical Professor of Health Informatics at University College London, Visiting Professor at the University of Gent, a member of the openEHR Foundation, and standards bodies including CEN, ISO and HL7.

Carolyn Lam is a Senior Consultant of the National Heart Centre, Singapore; Professor of Duke-NUS Cardiovascular Academic Clinical Program; Director of the Clinical & Translational Research Office at NHCS; Scientific Advisor to the Clinical Trials Coordinating Centre at SingHealth and Affiliate Member of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, completed advanced specialty training in Cardiology in Singapore, and pursued her Research Fellowship at the Cardiorenal Laboratory, Heart Failure Fellowship at the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, and Advanced Cardiology and Master of Biomedical Sciences at Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN. She received further training in clinical and genetic epidemiology at the Framingham Heart Study in Boston, MA, graduated from the Stanford Executive Programme and obtained her PhD at University Medical Centre Groningen. Dr Lam is heard weekly on the global podcast “Circulation On The Run” and seen regularly on television as the Resident Doctor of the health programme “Body and Soul” by MediaCorp Singapore.

Riccardo Lampariello holds an MSc in Applied Statistics and an MBA. He has 20 years of experience in Health: from Pharma – where he worked for over 10 years in various positions in Clinical Development and Business Development – to International Organizations and International NGOs. In May 2017 he joined Terre des hommes (the Swiss leading child relief agency improving the lives of millions of children around the world) where he is Head of the Health Department and leads two major programmes: Maternal, Child and Newborn Health and Cardiac Pediatric Surgery. In collaboration with the internal innovation unit, he drives the development and deployment of innovative projects (both disruptive and incremental) with a focus on digital health. Innovative projects include IeDA (a job-aid tool) with over 200’000 digital clinical consultations per month.

Erica Layer is the CEO of D-tree International, a digital health organization working at the intersection of health and technology to support integration of technology into health systems in low and middle-income countries which result in improved access and quality of healthcare. D-tree has been a pioneer in the field of global digital health for 15 years and are supporting governments in Zanzibar and Malawi to create national digital health systems, as well as working with NGO partners on projects in 16 countries. Ms. Layer brings over 12 years of experience working with health and technology, having lived in Tanzania for the past 8 years. She has a master’s in international health from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s in Chemistry from the College of Saint Benedict.

Thibaud Lefort is head of Global Health Business for Sanofi. He is in charge of designing and running initiatives aiming at improving sustainable access to quality healthcare for underserved populations. He is making sure as many people as possible have access to Sanofi’s broad portfolio of therapeutic solutions on the fields of communicable diseases (malaria, tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, tropical parasitic diseases) or non-communicable ones (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, oncology). Thibaud is a seasoned specialist of emerging markets, having spent more than twenty years in Africa and Asia in senior commercial roles. He was until recently General Manager for sub-Saharan Africa. As the pharma leader in Africa, Sanofi has been working for years to improve lives of millions of people across the continent, contributing to tackle the challenges of unmet medical needs across awareness, accessibility, availability and affordability. Together with its partners, Sanofi Global Health Business is conducting initiatives testing new business models to expand the reach of innovative solutions, delivering sustainable medical and economic benefits to patients and their communities.

Francisco Lopez-Jimenez is a Professor of Medicine at Mayo College of Medicine, the chair of the Division of Preventive Cardiology, the Director of Research at the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center, and the Co-Director of Artificial Intelligence in Cardiology at Mayo Clinic.  He is also the Chair of the International Committee for the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation. He has published more than 200 scientific publications, including invited editorials in journals like Lancet, and his scientific work has been cited more than 4,000 times. He is a member of the editorial boards of the American Journal of Cardiology, the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, Archives of Cardiology and the Journal of Clinical Investigation.  He has been frequently featured by the national media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN and NBC, and has been a guest speaker at National Public Radio on topics related to preventive cardiology.

Valerie Luyckx obtained her MD degree (MBBCh) from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Jackson Memorial Hospital, University of Miami, and nephrology training at the Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals, Harvard University. She has held clinical faculty positions at the University of the Witwatersrand, Harvard University and the University of Alberta in Edmonton Canada as Associate Professor. She is an associate lecturer in the Renal Division at the Brigham, and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University. Her clinical experience includes practice of Nephrology and Internal Medicine across a broad range of health systems, including South Africa, Malawi, Haiti, USA, urban and remote Canada and Switzerland. She is currently engaged in research in Biomedical Ethics at the University of Zurich and as a consultant for the World Health Organization working on projects relating to ethics in Health Policy and Systems Research, public health ethics and ethical challenges of non-communicable diseases.

Harris Lygidakis is a family doctor by training and is currently co-leading, as part of his PhD, the development of an mHealth intervention at the community level in Rwanda. Dr Lygidakis’s areas of research interest are: eHealth, mobile health, primary health care, global health and health literacy. 10+ years of experience working with multicultural and multidisciplinary teams, and in non-for-profit organizations. He is also former Honorary Secretary for the European branch of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA Europe).

Calum MacRae, MD, PhD, is the Vice Chair for Scientific Innovation in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Principal Faculty Member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an Associate Member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Calum works on the human genetics of cardiac and vascular disease, cardiovascular developmental biology, and drug discovery. His major clinical focus is the Cardiovascular Clinical Genetics Center, he co-directs the Genomic Medicine Program and has established a Next Gen Phenotyping Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Robert Madelin is the Chairman of Fipra International Ltd, a global public affairs advisory firm with boots on the ground in 50 countries around the world, including Canada and every EU member state. Robert also holds a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs of the University of Oxford. Before joining Fipra in 2016, Robert served as a public servant during 4 decades in both the UK and the European Union. He has notably led the European Commission’s telecommunications policy and regulatory arm, ‘DG CONNECT’, as Director General, 2010-15. Robert is the author of ‘Opportunity Now: Europe’s mission to innovate’ (2016) and a co-author of ‘An ethical framework for a good AI society’ (2018).  Robert is Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and Honorary Doctor of the University of Edinburgh.

Christoph Nabholz, Head Life & Behaviour R&D and Managing Director, Swiss Re. Christoph’s team provides applied R&D aimed at improving the understanding of insurance industry trends and developments in consumer behaviour, morbidity and mortality. Insights are applied to strengthen the steering, performance and innovation of Swiss Re’s Life & Health book and provide added value services to our clients. His team’s research and collaborations with leading research institutions and insurance corporates, allow them to develop forward-looking views on key portfolio drivers. Christoph started at Swiss Re in 2002 and held several positions in Swiss Re Global Life & Health Underwriting, Centre for Global Dialogue and Group Underwriting.

Ugo Pagallo is a former lawyer and professor of Jurisprudence at the Department of Law, University of Turin (Italy), Vice President of the Italian Association of Legal Informatics, current member of the Expert Group set up by the EU Commission on liability and new technology/new technologies formation. He is also working with the European Institute for Science, Media, and Democracy (Atomium) in the AI4People project, the first global forum in Europe on the Social Impacts of Artificial Intelligence. He is also collaborating with the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems; the European Science Foundation of Strasbourg, France; and the Joint International Doctoral (PhD) degree in Law, Science and Technology, part of the EU’s Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorates (EMJDs). Author of eleven monographs and numerous essays in scholarly journals and book chapters, his main interests are Artificial Intelligence & law, network and legal theory, and information technology law (specially data protection law and copyright). The Japanese and Chinese editions of his Springer book on The Laws of Robots are available since Spring 2018.

Jordi Serrano Pons is a medical doctor and founder & CEO of UniversalDoctor, a social enterprise developing initially award-winning applications for multilingual healthcare communication. The company won the United Nations World Summit Award of the mHealth category in 2015. UniversalDoctor has expanded its reach and its ultimate aim is to foster innovation through the creation and use of digital health tools in the global health space.  Jordi is also the co-founder of Zero Mothers Die, a global educational partnership initiative to improve knowledge during pregnancy through mobile technology solutions, and HEALTHIO, a unique conference platform ( with almost 5000 attendees in 2018) where patients, healthcare professionals and healthcare systems converge to discover the latest innovations in medicine in Barcelona. Jordi is a widely recognized leader in the digital health and innovation space and has been consulting for the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2013 to 2016 and collaborating with other global health key institutions (ISGlobal, London School of Higyene and Tropical Medicine) Right now all these collaborations are done under the umbrella of his social company  UniversalDoctor. He was recently named one of the Top 50 Healthcare IT Leaders in Europe as part of the Future50 classification, supported by IBM Watson Health, a new initiative by HIMSS Europe.

Sameer Pujari manages the flagship WHO and ITU joint initiative on mHealth for Non-Communicable Diseases; the Be He@lthy Be Mobile program. He is the Vice Chair of  ITU WHO Focus Group,  AI 4 Health. Sameer is part of the newly formed Digital Health department and is instrumental in WHO’s activities related to Digital Health. Prior to his current roles, he worked with the US Governments health agency helping various countries build informatics systems for immunization and vaccination programs in Asia Europe and Africa. He started his career working with WHO’s National Polio Surveillance Project in India for 7 years, where he led the development and implementation of various information management systems for surveillance across the country.

Jan-Wilhelm Scheijgrond currently serves as Vice President Global Government and Public Affairs at Royal Philips, where he heads up the global network within Philips that is responsible for the relations with governments and related stakeholders to address societal challenges in particular in the area of large scale health care transformations.  He is also responsible for partnerships with international partners such as the United Nations and International donors. In that role Mr. Scheijgrond is focusing on partnerships that strengthen health systems in support of achieving Universal Health Coverage.  Mr. Scheijgrond is a member of the Global Finance Facility Investors Group, member of the UHC 2030 Private Sector Constituency and Chairman of the UN Global Compact Netherlands. Mr. Scheijgrond joined Philips in 2009 as Senior Director as part of the Corporate Sustainability Office with responsibility for risk and reputation management. He started his career at the United Nations Environment Program, where he developed best practices guides related to cleaner production for emerging markets. Subsequently, he held a number of sustainability and government affairs related functions at the BLC Leather Confederation, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Scheijgrond holds a Masters degree in Environmental Technology from Wageningen University, the Netherlands, he is married and has two children.

Martin Seychell is a graduate in chemistry and pharmaceutical technology, specialized in Chemical analysis. He has held important positions on several government boards and commissions in Malta, including the Food Safety Commission and the Pesticides Board. Mr Seychell occupied the post of Head of Directorate at the Malta Standards Authority between 2001 and 2006. He has been responsible for the implementation of a number of EU directives in the areas of risk assessment, food safety, chemicals and cosmetic products legislation, and has actively participated in negotiations on major technical proposals such as the new chemicals legislation, REACH, and in screening processes in the areas of free movement of goods, environment and agriculture during the process leading to Malta’s accession to the EU. He held the post of Director of Environment in Malta between 2006 and 2011. As Director, he was responsible for a broad range of functions arising from the Maltese Environment Protection Act. He was appointed Deputy Director General for Health and Consumers at the European Commission in March 2011. Responsible for directorates dealing with Consumer affairs, Public health and Health systems and products (SANCO). 2014 – to date: Deputy Director-General for Health in the Health and Food Safety Directorate-General (SANTE).

Karen Sliwa is President of the World Heart Federation and a Professor at the Hatter Institute for Cardiovascular Research in Africa (HICRA) at the University of Cape Town. Born in Germany, she is a clinician-scientist, having trained in Germany, Scotland and Israel. In 1992, Karen immigrated to South Africa where she completed her clinical training as a specialist physician, cardiologist and obtained a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In 2002 she was awarded a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand and she contributed to > 250 peer-reviewed articles and trained > 30 postgraduate students so far. Professor Sliwa is highly experienced in developing, designing and leading cardiovascular disease (CVD) studies in various healthcare environments in Africa. She devised innovative strategies to raise funds through numerous sources at a time when very limited funding was available for non-communicable disease (NCD) research.

Ruth Webster is the Global Head of Medicine in George Health Technologies, a social enterprise of The George Institute for Global Health. George Health Technologies aims to scaleup effective digital health solutions to improve the diagnosis and management of chronic disease globally. Dr Webster is also the Head of Technical Transfer within The George Institute for Global Health with responsibility for ensuring smooth transfer of intellectual property generated by The George Institute’s world leading researchers into the social enterprise arm for scaleup.  As a researcher, she has a particular interest in the development of novel strategies to bridge the evidence-practice gap in Cardiovascular Disease prevention.

David Wood is a cardiologist committed to prevention of cardiovascular disease and holds joint emeritus academic appointments at Imperial College and the National University of Ireland-Galway. He has contributed to international policy and guidelines on cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention through the World Health Organisation, World Heart Federation and the European Society of Cardiology. He was a founder and President of the European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, a Board member of the European Society of Cardiology and most recently President of the World Heart Federation (2017-18). He is the principal investigator for the ASPIRE and EUROASPIRE studies across 27 European countries, evaluating standards of preventive cardiology practice in hospital and primary care.  He is now working for the National Institute of Prevention and Cardiovascular Health at the National University of Ireland-Galway to support the development of research in all aspects of cardiovascular prevention and health, to help expand the MSc course in Preventive Cardiology at NUI-G into a portfolio of MSc courses in cardiovascular health and disease prevention, and to contribute to innovative service development in secondary and primary prevention of CVD.

08:30-09:00
Registration

09:00-09:10
Welcome & Introduction

09:10-10:00
Keynote lectures:
The role of digital health in medicine
Artificial intelligence will help the cardiovascular space

10:00-11:00
Panel discussion:
Harnessing mobile and online technologies for better health

11:30-12:30
Parallel workshops:
Innovations in drug discovery
Implications of digital health across different income settings

14:00-15:00
Panel discussion:
Understanding the regulatory impact of artifi cial intelligence
and digital solutions in health

15:15-16:30
Parallel workshops:
Implications of digital health for health systems
Bringing health innovations to market

08:30-09:00
Registration

09:00-09:20
Highlights from the previous day

09:20-10:00
Keynote lectures:
Better Hearts Better Cities
The future of digital health in the European Union

10:00-11:30
Panel discussion:
How do we move forward on AI and digital solutions in circulatory health?

11:30-12:00
Closing remarks and Calls to Action

12:00-13:00
Lunch