The inaugural Change.Enabled conference, hosted by the Institute for Technology & Global Health at PathCheck Foundation, took place last Friday, June 24th in New York City. The theme for this year's event was “Global Health and the Innovation Assembly,” which focused on the health crises we currently face and how technology and innovation can be leveraged to ameliorate them.
“Technology doesn’t always mean innovation and innovation doesn’t always mean technology” - Chris Dickey
Tobias Silberzahn, a Partner at McKinsey who also heads the Global Health Tech Network presented on the global trends in digital health and the new offerings by private sector firms. Manny Lamarre of the U.S. Department of Labor and Carlotta Arthur from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine spoke of the importance of health equity and the possible solutions to creating a more equitable health system. Uyen Huynh, Chief of Innovation and Learning at UNICEF, and Chris Dickey, Director of the Global Public Health program at NYU engaged in deep discussions on the role of advanced public health training to ensure those who aspire to careers in the field, are equipped to innovate in a rapidly changing landscape, that is driven by advanced technologies. They also discussed at length, exploring new methods of evaluating the effectiveness of novel technologies. Importantly, the pair highlighted that innovative solutions in health do not necessarily mean that technology must be used. In fact, some of the most innovative solutions that have been created by people in developing countries have not included any digital components.
Pardis Sabeti, a Computational Geneticist and Professor at Harvard University presented her work on Operation Outbreak, which she and her team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed and are implementing. The tool is part of an effort to educate students on how infectious diseases spread by simulating an outbreak, as well as how vaccines and herd immunity work. The final panel of the day focused on the future of technology, with Tanya Accone, a Senior Advisor on Innovation at UNICEF speaking on the ways in which we can think about innovation, especially in resource-constrained settings.
The second iteration of Change.Enabled is scheduled for spring 2023. The new theme will be announced later this year.