FTR4H is back at SXSW this week, supporting the Healthtech Innovation Day organized by Startup Colors as part of Berlin Saloon.
Join us March 9th at 12pm at the corner of 6th street and Brazos, for a healthy lunch powered by FTR4H. It will be followed by the exciting program curated by Startup Colors’ team, with inspiring talks, expert and fireside chats and networking sessions covering the following topics:
The role of nurses in leading innovation
The human digitome: the 1st digital representation of human health
The power of voice-based AI in healthcare
How new hard- and software solutions can make you move and heal
How Blockchain technology can increase the impact in healthcare and
Patient empowerment or how we can own our own data
20 inspiring speakers will take the stage to share their work and view on the future of healthcare. Amongst them:
Erik Gerritsen, Vice Minister of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (The Netherlands)
Michael Docktor, Pediatric Gastroenterologist, Clinical Director of Innovation at Boston Children’s Hospital (USA)
Shawna Butler, EntrepreNURSE in residence (The Netherlands, USA)
Rasu Shrestha, Chief Strategy Officer, Atrium Health (USA)
Dennis Grishin, Chief Scientific Officer, Nebula Genomics (USA)
Aline Noizet, Healthcare Connector at Startup Colors (Spain)
Visit the website to check all the speakers and the complete program and to reserve your free ticket. Discover with us all colors and shades of innovation in Healthcare during this special day at SXSW 2019 and how we can make a change together!
Hit the road and join us on our first meetup tour in the USA. In preparation of FTR4H@SXSW 2019, together with our community partner Dataconomy we travel across a complete continent to find the best speakers, connect with interesting partners and talk to all the digital health entrepreneurs we can find!
We confirmed a few speakers already but are still open for your pitch!
So if you are interested to speak at any of the locations above, please fill out and return this form!
And also save-the-date for SXSW 2019 in Austin. The FTR4H crew will be there from March 8th till March 12th. Last year we brought together more than 30 speakers on a stage that welcomed more than 600 attendees overall.
Reach out to Maren Lesche if you need further information!
A solution to a problem is worth little without execution and adoption. But even before that the idea you might have needs validation and support. If you’re working in the digital health space, MEDICA App Competition is an opportunity you shouldn’t miss.
“Winning the competition brought us tremendous benefits regarding recognition, branding and finding new partners,” says Moka Lantum, serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Sagitarix Ltd, private health technology, and concierge medicines distribution company, which design iSikcure app – last year’s winner of the MEDICA App Competition.
MEDICA App competition for digital health startups is running 7th year in a row this year. Applications can be submitted until September 30th, 2018.
APPLY HERE and don’t forget to read the evaluation criteria before finalizing the application.
In essence,you are eligible to apply if you have a medical app for smartphones / tablets / smartwatches / AR or VR gears / drones. Solution that are NOT eligible are pure B2C solutions with focus on diet tips, fitness or wellness.
RECOGNITION: The most essential reward indeed is the global awareness created at MEDICA as well as through MEDICA means.
MONEY: The solution ranked number 1 will be rewarded with EUR 2,000, the number 2 with EUR 1,000 and the number 3 with EUR 500.
GRANTS AND MENTORSHIP PROGRAMS: Our partner SXSW grants two (2) ‘SXSW 2019 Interactive badge registrations’ worth USD 1,325 per pass to the winning team for accessing the cult event in March 2019 in Austin, TX (USA). Our partner Startupboothcamp (SBC) Digital Health sponsors following vouchers for the top 3 places:
– 1st prize winner gets one (1) exclusive ticket to attend SBC Masterclass in Berlin during the next SBC Health Program 2019.
– 2nd prize winner gets dinner with a SBC Mentor in Berlin
– 3rd prize winner gets one (1) hour of SBC Online Mentor Office Hours
This year’s SXSW was the second time Future for health attended one of the worlds liveliest innovation, music, entrepreneurship and latest tech trends festival. This year in Austin, Texas we hosted three companies in our pavilion in the exhibition space – G4A Generator and global FTR4H sponsors BGI and Philips Healthworks. The highlight, however, was the full-day conference, held on Sunday, March 11th.
The main focus of the program was to bring the international audience the best global speakers from various countries. After an introduction of FTR4 by its co-founder Tom Mitchell, President of MDNA, the opening keynote was in the hands of Rasu Shrestha, CIO at UPMC and Head of UPMC Enterprises.
The subject of his keynote was “Everybody wants to innovate, nobody wants to change”, and as he emphasized, the biggest danger to innovation is complacency of existing market players. When talking about innovation, we need to be aware it regards behavioral change, which requires deep design thinking. Only in such design technology can be invisible to the user and consequently effective.
Priscilla Beal, Head of G4A Generator, presented Bayers new, the US focused initiative for startups addressing self-care in the areas of sun and skin protection, external pain management, nutritional support and digital self-care.
Johannes Steger (left on the picture below), Journalist at Handelsblatt moderated the panel of patient self-care with panelists Jordi Piera Jiménez, Secretary of the Strategic IT Board at the Catalonian Healthcare Department and Jorrit Ebben, Co-founder & Managing Director, Academy Het Dorp.
Our global FTR4H Evangelist Mark Wächter talked to Brian Rosnov, Innovation Lead at Philips HealthWorks about solving Healthcare challenges via collaboration. HealthWorks a recently created unit within Philips has a mission to generate Breakthrough Innovation in the area of Healthcare particularly Digital Health. Working at a global level, HealthWorks is creating new methods of collaboration with external startups and the Healthcare eco-system to solve some of the bigger challenges that exist in Healthcare around the world.
The conversation on collaboration was followed by a debate on potentials of blockchain in healthcare with Eugene Borukhovich, the Global Head of Digital Health Incubation & Innovation at Bayer, Samson Williams, co-founder of Axes & Eggs, a cryptocurrency mining company and Michael Dillhyon, Co-founder of Swiss-based Healthbank. It was moderated by the FTR4H Ambassador Tjaša Zajc, business developer at Iryo.
We are especially proud to offer the SXSW audience an insight into digital health development around the world. The session was moderated by Maren Lesche, eHealth Startup Expert, and Ambassador at FTR4H.
Jonathan Lee (picture above), Executive Director of Academy at MaGIC, presented Malaysia. Regine M.A. Th. Aalders, Counselor for Health, Welfare and Sport to Canada and the USA, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands presented the state of eHealth and digital health in the Netherlands. FTR4H Ambassador Moka Lantum talked about opportunities and specifics of the African market. We heard the presentation of approaches to digital health in Norway, presented by Nard Schreurs, Director eHealth, and smart living at IKT-Norge/ITK Norway.
Big Data and AI are buzzwords when it comes to healthcare future. From public health to personal patient data and transparency of medical documentation, to care personalization, to the future of work for clinicians, the expectations on Big Data impact are at times astonishing and at times alarming.
Elena Poughia, Managing Director At DataNatives and Dataconomy talked to Urška Sršen, Founder and CCO at Bellabeat, Anthony Gerardi, MBA, Chief Operating Officer of Enterprise Analytics, Gwynneth Ballentine, Digital Health Innovation Lead, TMC Innovation Institute, Sangeeta Chakraborty, CCO, Ayasdi and Wout Brusselaers, CEO, Co.founder Deep 6 AI.
After an open-mic session, we wrapped up the conference with genomics. Mark Wächter talked to dr. Wang Jingjing, a Product Manager at BGI International. Dr. Wang Jingjing gave a speech on the topic of “The Future of Genomics – Whole Genome Sequencing WGS.” She mentioned that in the field of pathogen detection, metagenomics sequencing provides a single, all-inclusive diagnostic test and allows actionable information to be obtained sooner than traditional techniques. In the future of personalized medicine, sequencing is easy to obtain, while the comprehensiveness of microbial WGS database and data interpretation will be the challenge. Metagenome sequence data will be an important tool to predict disease susceptibility and drug response.
After the successful launch of our digital health think tank FTR4H (Future For Health) we will be back at SXSW in 2018! As an official partner we will rock our FTR4H Conference Stage, coordinate an FTR4H expo spaceand explore business opportunities in the vibrant healthcare hubs Houston and Austin with special delegationsfor startups, corporates and investors!
SXSW we are coming!
SXSW is fun, SXSW is inspiration and SXSW is THE place to be in March! SXSWeek® spans 10 days and nights from March 9 –18 in 2018. It includes several festivals, e.g. SXSW Interactive, the SXSW Gaming Conference as well as a Music and Film Festival. In 2017, direct participation in SXSWeek totaled approximately 421,900! With more than 100 talks on Healthcare alone, SXSW is also an important source of inspiration for the worldwide healthcare community. However, the sheer size of the event as well as the intense program makes it hard to focus and talk business – something our FTR4H team experienced last year!
Based on our experience from running conferences and trade fairs such as MEDICA in Duesseldorf, we decided to partner up with the amazing crew behind SXSW to highlight Digital Health at SXSW!
FTR4H at SXSW: Expo, Conference and Delegations
There are many ways to join us at SXSW!
Showcase your product at our FTR4H Space at SXSW! Our exhibitor packages are customised and include SXSW Interactive tickets worth $1125, an option to present on our FTR4H stage which will be featured in the official SXSW program, logo placement as well as access to our international Digital Health community!
Tell your Healthcare Story on our FTR4H Discovery Stage on March 11! 75,000 attendees explored the SXSW exhibition in 2017, where our stage will be located.
Explore Business Opportunities during our FTR4H Innovation Tours in Houston and Austin. Meet MedTech experts, investors, researchers and startups.
Interested? Do not procrastinate Get inspired by the creative crowd at SXSW in Austin AND explore business opportunities with us in one of the most important healthcare hubs in the USA!
“Just creating an app does not mean you have a company. The key key question is: are you solving a problem?” These were the opening words of Pradeep K. Jaisingh, Founder of HealthStart India, at the VC Panel at #FTR4H program at MEDICAL FAIR India in New Delhi. Panel was organised by HealthStart. The main aim was to highlight VC perspective on the digital health startups scene in India.
As said by Mr. Jaisingh, the basic background of technology needs to be that it improves the outcome. A solution needs to solve a problem and be sustainable. From the macro perspective, potential for disruptive innovation in India is big, said Mr. Jaisingh. Especially in terms of diagnostics, treatment and management of chronic diseases.
The doctor’s expectations in the near future are high. Artificial intelligence can be utilized to effectively synthesize patient information before his visit in the hospital or a doctor’s office.
What do the doctors need?
Private Equity Professional Mayur Sirdesai, Director at Somerset Indus Capital Partners, warned, the key issue in digital health technology and innovation is probability of adoption. “When a doctor has a line of patients in the waiting room, he can’t be bothered by entering data in the computer,” he mentioned. The second challenge is payment for digital solutions. Revenue model of a startup is crucial to implementation of a solution in practice. In India, most payments are still out of pocket which might change with the development of the insurance market.
From the perspective of Shuchin Bajaj, Founder Director at Cygnus Medicare, a big potential in India is in putting more effort into medical education of other specialists and healthcare providers, apart from doctors. “We are to doctor-centric. I am a big fan of personalized medicine and “ayurveda” in that sense. These sciences look at the patient as an individual while medicine takes the patient as a dataset. Ayurveda does not treat the disease,” he said.
Needs and payments
Partha Dey, Healthcare Leader and SME at IBM India mentioned the need for more collaboration:“It is clear and we agree we need to walk together and collaborate. Technology can work as a platform and our idea is to use it to solve real life problems. We are working on longterm solutions. The first issue is always the business case. What do users need? What are they prepared to pay for? A lot of startups have ideas, but struggle with translation and implementation in practice.”
Vikram Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner at IvyCap Ventures Advisors described India as a unique market because of the payment system. “In the developed world insurance takes care of healthcare. Our environment drives behaviour. Hence healthcare consumption is different compared to the rest of the world. The opportunities here are of different nature than in other countries. One thing to look at is infrastructure. Ratio of hospitals does not match population needs.” Huge opportunities lay in financial assistance for healthcare, concluded Vikram Gupta.
iNICU stands for ‘Integrated Neonatal Intensive Care Unit’. The solution is leveraging IOT and Big Data,connecting generated source data from various devices.
iNICU is a one stop workflow solution to assimilate and disseminate neonate information. The application is designed to help improve management of all responsibilities of various professionals (Nurse, Resident Doctor, Senior Doctor, Pediatrician and Administrator) involved in the care of a baby.
A solution for an important but hitherto ignored area – Student Wellness. It helps monitor, track and control children’s wellness in school, making it easier for parents and teachers recognize struggles of specific students. This makes it easier for the carers to find ways to help students cope with their problems easier and make most of their potentials.
Focus 2: data optimization, presentation, utilization
Vertes Cloud
Empowering transformation along enterprises in various verticals, mainly in the field of Education & Learning solutions. A mixed approach with Open Source & proprietary offerings enable institutions achieve higher levels of transformation, in much affordable way. Abda Digital
Abda Digital (a Tech Vedika Pvt. Ltd. spin off) has been establish with vision to develop innovative products specifically for the mobile and digital space. The inception of Abda in November 2015 marked commitment to focus on product ideas that could help organizations communicate with their target audiences in the best way using less time.
Management software for obstetricians and gynecologists is offering End-to-End Solution to all ObGyn Practice Management Challenges. This solutions offers a new way of communication between the expecting mother, obstetricians and gynecologists. Between visits in the doctors office, the mother can ask questions with the help of a platform.
Cardiotrack brings portability to healthcare diagnostics. Cardiotrack health sensors provide clinical grade reading for 12-lead ECG, SpO2 and blood pressure. Robust design makes Cardiotrack an ideal solution for home healthcare, tele-health, doctor’s clinic, nursing home or primary healthcare.
This solution is altering the delivery of critical life saving health care monitoring during emergency and preventive diagnostic capabilities. This is done at a much lower price-performance points, thanks to innovative synthesis of digital signal processing, image processing, biomedical components, algorithms, wireless and communication technologies. The first sets of solutions are in the realm of wireless remote patient monitoring.
TrackMyBeat is a healthcare technology and analytics company, offering a complete health and wellness management system. It focuses on the prevention of lifestyle diseases. The subscriber can proactively manage his or her health through automated alerts. The product also highlights the efficacy of various interventions and activities in improving the user’s well-being.
If you’re a part of the Digital Health universe and based in India, there’s only one place you should be during 6-8 April.MEDICAL FAIR INDIA, taking place in New Delhi, invites you to explore the FTR4H Lab & Lounge at MEDICAL FAIR INDIA 2017, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
14:05 – 14:20 Digital Health – a global snapshot / Tjaša Zajc, FTR4H Global Audience Developer
14:20 – 14:40 Infrastructure Services for healthcare customers/ Mr Ashish Kothari, Associate Director – Infrastucture Services, IBM Global Technology Services – Cloud
14:40 – 15:00 Digital health Solutions alongside the healthcare continuum / Satish Choudhury, eSec Forte
15:00 – 15:10 DOC n Me / Samidha Garud
15:10 – 15:20 Track My Beat
15:20 – 15:40 Tech Mahindra
15:40 – 16:00 FTR4H Fireside Chat
FTR4H (Future For Health) is an international platform, which enables discussions, meetings, dialogs and networking among thousands of Digital Health start-ups, corporations and investors, including accelerators and media from around the world. We explore how Digital Transformation effects the healthcare industry: Mobile – Feature Phones, Smartphones, Phablets, Tablets, Wearables, VR Headsets, IOT – Internet of Things – Sensors, Drones, Robots, 3D-Printer, Smart Things like Cars and Homes, Data – Smart Data, Self Data, Genomics Data, Safe Data.Future for Health acts as a think tank and definer to connect all global Digital Health Ecosystems in markets like China, Europe, India, Israel and the US with MEDICA – a hashtag to categorize what drives Digital Health: #FTR4H
According to CBinsights, Startups have raised over $1.1B to help improve women’s healthcare. At SXSW 2017, we therefore invited a new startup that developed a FemTech solution that will support teenage girls in learning more about sexual health: The Hungarian-German startup MediLad builds personalized health conversations for women.The first product of the young female founders team is Izzy, a period tracking chatbot for messenger. In a short time of 3 months, the female founder team engaged 15,000 users worldwide and processed around 300,000 messages. In September 2016, the team joined the first batch of Startupbootcamp Digital Health Berlin.
What is FemTech? The analysts of CBinsights divid FemTech in eight major areas:
Fertility solutions – Startups providing IVF, egg freezing, and medical treatments for female infertility.
Period & fertility tracking mobile apps – Mobile apps for self-tracking of periods and fertility cycles.
At-home fertility monitoring devices – Startups offering hardware devices for women to monitor their fertility at home.
Pregnancy & nursing care – Startups offering medical care & diagnostics for pregnant women, as well as tech-enhanced breast pumps.
Reproductive system healthcare – Healthcare companies focused on women’s sexual health issues, such as pelvic floor device makersand women’s STI treatments.
General healthcare – Teams aiming to improve the overall clinical healthcare experience for women.
Period care goods – Startups offering pads, tampons, and CPG items for managing periods.
Women’s sexual wellness – Startups offering lubricants and related items to help women improve sexual wellness.
Learn more about MediLad & Izzy at the FTR4H Digital Health Reception on March 13th, 4pm, at the German Pavillion, Wunderbar.
India has more than 5 million qualified professionals working in the healthcare industry. There are around 1 million doctors and 2.5 million nurses. This workforce is growing at a rate of more than 10% per annum.
If India is a puzzle to you, this short interview with Mayank Sharma, one of the owners ofMedhoop – a platform for healthcare professionals and industry in India, will give you a nice introduction into the current state of the trends in the digital health startup community in India. And why it is a good investment to take part in events such asMedical Fair India 2017, held from 6-8 April in New Delhi.
“We aim to create an ecosystem in the healthcare industry for all the industry stakeholders. Everyone, from medical students, colleges and teaching institutes, healthcare providers, Health-tech, medical devices and consumables industry, thought leaders and startups, can connect seamlessly and grow together,” This is Sharma’s brief description of Medhoop. The size of the country is keeping the healthcare industry in India fragmented. The disconnect is making the industry inefficient and uncompetitive. For this reason, digital health development is so much more promising here.
Let’s start with the basics. What are the three digital health trends to watch out for in India?
Mayank Sharma, one of the owners of Medhoop.
The Indian healthcare industry is now growing 360 degrees. Healthcare providers are not only focusing on developing world class healthcare physical infrastructure, but also on integrating technology. All this aims at making treatment and information closer to patients. Among major trends I would highlight mobile health (mHealth), on-demand healthcare, EHR/EMR solutions, healthcare aggregators and telemedicine.
How developed are these segments?
The mHealth space is probably the hottest in the segment. It is being further augmented by wearable gadgets that monitor health statics on a real-time basis. There are startups integrating existing technologies with concepts like telemedicine, doctor on call and remote monitoring of patients. On-demand healthcare is fit for an urban population which seeks everything instantly. If possible, they want it available on their smartphones. Startups understand this need. EHR industry is on the rise, looking to capture all the information they can. Not only to provide better health care for patients, but also for system improvements. From cutting treatment costs, research purposes, giving patients access to their health records online, to changes in regulatory environment.
What does the startup community in India look like?
“Today India is among the top countries in terms of growth of startups. It is exciting, buzzing with innovation, passion and energy.”
India has been a country of startups for a long time. But the real recognition is happening now – with the rise of Startups Unicorns. We have Flipkart, Snapleal, Taxi aggregator Uber (prime competitor to Uber in India), online payment solution Paytm. Social media and growing internet penetration has opened an altogether new growth avenue for startups.
What about the digital health community specifically?
The digital healthcare community in India is growing at a very rapid pace. From hospital/doctor appointment booking solutions, EHRs, diagnostic lab aggregators, mobile health devices – innovation and new ideas all around. Today we see a lot more entrepreneurs in the digital health and healthcare space compared to 5-8 years ago.
What contributed to this acceleration?
At first, the healthcare community has been hostile to new technologies and experiments due to the inherent nature of its business. But slowly, the awareness levels and aspirations of doing things faster and better is positively affecting healthcare innovations and digital health technology. Companies like Practo have already made it big and are serving international markets already.
Which cities are leading in terms of accelerating innovation? How does Delhi rank in this community?
Bangalore leads the list, closely followed by Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Not surprisingly, we also have beautiful healthcare and health-tech ideas coming out from comparatively smaller cities like Jaipur and Ahmedabad. I myself come from Hathras, a very small town, and now residing in Delhi, so let’s say innovation has no boundaries.
What were the digital health biggest investments in 2016?
There is significant development and a number of startups working on services like pharmacy or lab services aggregators, remote monitoring healthcare devices and online doctor or hospital discovery. Startups which attracted major investments in 2016 were majorly from the SaaS segment. Practo, Healthkart, 1mg, and Goqii were among the front runners in a list of healthcare investments by investors.
“There is significant development and a number of startups working on services like pharmacy or lab services aggregators, remote monitoring healthcare devices and online doctor or hospital discovery.”
Which are your Top 3, 7 or 10 startups for 2017?
This is a tough question for such an exciting space like digital healthcare in India. But if I divide the digital healthcare space into segments, I would say the following: In-Doctor Networkspace: the two companies clearly standing out are DocPlexus and Curofy. Both of them are fulfilling the need of doctors to be able to consult cases online right from their mobile phones and build their own professional network. It would be interesting to see what route they take next.
In-Doctor Discoverysegment: booking platform Practo had disrupted the industry before anyone could even think of an idea such as online booking of appointments. Lybrate (online doctor database gives you access to over 90,000 highly trained medical experts) has been able to stick it out in 2016 and will, it seems, continue to do so. Then there is CrediHealth, with the tagline ‘Your Medical Assistance’ doing exactly the same. Within its services, it offers second opinions, doctor selection and surgery planning to an altogether other level. I am sure these companies will be further innovating and disrupting this space.
Where can Startups present their solution to the wider public? Are there many events such Medical Fair India?
There are multiple events on medical equipment, lab equipment, medical specialty-specific devices and pharma in India.
You are a partner of Medical Fair India. Where do you see the benefit of this collaboration?
It matches with our belief that as a healthcare ecosystem partner, we have a responsibility to represent all the healthcare stakeholders and engage with them. This year Medical Fair India combines equal opportunities for healthcare companies as well as medical and healthcare technology startups, which is an encouraging trend.
What can startups expect from Medical Fair India?
The most important part of such expositions and fairs is networking with various industry stakeholders. Participation offers understanding of new dimensions of the industry, understanding the demands, meeting customers, buyers and a lot more. This season Medical Fair India integrates FTR4H (Future For Health) platform where healthcare technology startups can participate. Medhoop also plays a critical role of bringing these startups to forefront, connecting them with industry, prospective customers, investors and a lot more. Among other things, we are organising mentorship hours for startups. So there is a lot for startups to gain.
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