The $4.4 trillion gap that will separate tomorrow's winners from everyone else Your boardroom is making decisions based on assumptions that were no longer true five years ago. Coastal cities are sinking. Floods and fires are redrawing distribution routes. The infrastructure built for a stable planet is cracking under the heat it was never engineered to withstand. Here's what few in the…
Last year was a year of turbulent transition for me, both personally and professionally. It was a year in which I adapted to a new reality after my father had died (and I began to realise just how much he had meant to me), as well as adapting to my shift from in my working life, from looking at the future of Digital Health to looking at the future of Planetary Health. In this post, I’m going to…
I can’t believe I’m writing about my father in the past tense. My biggest supporter in life died just before Christmas 2023. We were exceptionally close, especially over the last few years, and that’s why the loss is so profound for me. I’m writing to share his story, what he meant to me, and how he shaped so much of my life, including my work. Papa was always there for me, whether in person, or…
People ask me what gets me out of bed every morning. I have this big vision about finding ways to use data to improve the health of everyone on the planet. Yes, that’s right, all 7.7 billion of us. My mission on a daily basis is to find projects that help me on the path towards making that vision a reality. I’m always on the lookout for people who are also dreaming about making an impact on the…
We can now converse with machines in the form of chatbots. Some of you might have used a chatbot when visiting a company’s website. They have even entered the world of healthcare. I note that the pharmaceutical company, Lupin, has rolled out Anya , India’s first chatbot for disease awareness, in this case, for Diabetes. Even for mental health, chatbots have recently been developed, such as Woebot…
In this post, I want to talk about lies. It’s ironic that I’m writing this on the day of the US midterm election where the truth continues to be a rare sight to witness. Many in the UK feel they were lied to by politicians over the Brexit referendum. Apparently, politicians face a choice, lie or lose . Deception, deceit, lying, however you want to describe it, it’s part of what makes us human. I…
As we begin the 21st century, we are in an era of unprecedented innovation, where computers are becoming smarter, being used to deliver products and services powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). I was fascinated how AI is being used in advertising, when I saw a TV advert this week from Microsoft where a musician was talking about the benefits of AI. Organisations in every sector, including…
We're are facing a new dawn, as machines get smarter. Recent advancements in technology available to the average consumer with a smartphone are challenging many of us. Our beliefs, our norms and our assumptions about what is possible, correct and right are increasingly being tested. One area where I've been personally noticing very rapid developments is in the arena of chatbots, software available…
Mobility is an interesting term. Here in the UK, I've grown up seeing mobility as something to do with getting old and grey, when you need mobility aids around the home, or even a mobility scooter. Which is why I was curious about Audi (who make cars) hosting an innovation summit at their global headquarters in Germany to explore the Mobility Quotient . I'd never even heard of that term before.…
It’s really difficult to write this post, not as difficult as the last one, Being Human , but still challenging. Sometimes the grief doesn’t let go of me, and sometimes I don’t want to let go of the grief. I can see the resistance to letting go of the pain of losing a loved one. Perhaps we mistakenly equate letting go of the pain as letting go of our loved one, and that’s why we want to stay in…
This is the most difficult blog post I’ve ever had to write. Almost 3 months ago, my sister passed away unexpectedly. It’s too painful to talk about the details. We were extremely close and because of that the loss is even harder to cope with. The story I want to tell you today is about what’s happened since that day and the impact it’s had on how I view the world. In my work, I spend considerable…
I've been conducting research for a while now on how patients and their families have innovated themselves. They decided not to wait for the system to act, but acted themselves. One leading example is the Open Artificial Pancreas System project, and they even use the hashtag, ##WeAreNotWaiting. I was inspired to write this post today for two reasons. I delivered a keynote at the MISK Hackathon in…
Back in 2014, Google acquired a British artificial intelligence startup in London, called Deepmind . It was their biggest EU purchase at that time, and was estimated to be in the region of 400 million pounds (approx $650 million) Deepmind's aim from the beginning was to develop ways in which computers could think like humans. Earlier this year, Deepmind launched Deepmind Health , with a focus on…
Given the launch of products such as the Samsung Gear VR or Pokemon GO, many of us are experimenting with developments in technology such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to both create, share and consume content. One of the challenges in Digital Health when it comes to creating an app is where the expertise will come from for building it? It’s an even bigger challenge if you…
If you've watched movies like Iron Man, featuring virtual assistants, like JARVIS, which you can just have a conversation with and control your home, you probably think that such virtual assistants belong in the realm of science fiction. Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook set a personal challenge to create a JARVIS style assistant for his own home. "My personal challenge for…
That's the question that I've been reflecting upon over the last 12 months. Some of you may have noticed that in 2016, there is much more news, discussion and excitement with regard to Virtual Reality (VR) technology. Every other day there is some new announcement, and more and more people are believing that this could play a greater role in our future. Google has recently extended its foray into…
For this post, I wanted to share Molly Watt’s story. I first came across Molly in 2015, after I read her Apple Watch post . I had also just received my Apple Watch and was curious about other people’s experiences. What’s different about Molly, is that she has Usher syndrome , which is a rare genetic disorder caused by a mutation in any one of at least 11 genes resulting in a combination of hearing…
For this post, I caught up with Dr Manpinder Sahota , a GP in Britain's NHS. We first interacted over Twitter, where we met on the topic of shifting healthcare to a world of prevention. Dr Sahota said he had a vision for building a GP practice with a focus on wellness and prevention of disease, and was curious if technology could play a role in that. So I hopped on a train to see him, and what…
For this post, I caught up with Dr Brennan Spiegel, to hear in more detail about his journey to get a wearable biosensor from concept to clinic. In the interview, we discuss how an idea for a sensor was borne out of an unmet clinical need, how the sensor was prototyped, tested, and subjected to clinical research, and how it was finally FDA approved in December of 2015. Throughout, we learn about…
In this post, I'm going to be sharing my thoughts regarding the first Scripps Health Digital Medicine event hosted by Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) that I attended a few months ago. What was excellent, and still rare to see in many Digital Health events across the globe is that both days started with patients sharing their stories on stage, and not just a few minutes, but 30…