200+ healthcare innovators hosted by EIT Health Austria in Vienna

Last week, EIT Health Austria welcomed more than 200 health tech and life sciences innovators in Vienna to meet for the EIT Health Matchmaking, as well as a Partner Forum. The latter focused on a “blue sky” session to elaborate on possible future education projects with the EIT Health network, which spans over 130 partners from business, academia and research.

Highlights from the Matchmaking event included numerous 1:1 sessions between EIT Health Partners from across Europe in the charming Palais Auersperg, as well as a keynote and discussion on AI healthcare: “Systemic health innovation through artificial intelligence can only be achieved comprehensively by connecting different organizations across borders to enable a secure flow of health data. We need to break down platform barriers, create interoperability and put systems in place that increase patients’ outcomes at every stage of their journey”, said Hubert Wackerle, CEO of IT-Services der Sozialversicherung GmbH (full-service IT provider for the Austrian Social Insurance and its umbrella organisation) and keynote speaker of the event.

One aspect taken up in the discussion was the role of “digital humanism” in the development of AI-based healthcare applications. Eva Czernohorszky, Head of Technology Services at Vienna Business Agency presented the ”Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism” to the audience and emphasised its strategic relevance for the City of Vienna.

The panel was moderated by Maggie Childs and completed by key industry voices, incl. Dr. Angela Spatharou Lead for EMEA Healthcare in Global Business Services at IBM and Julian Isla, Data and Artificial Intelligence Resource Manager at Microsoft.

The main objective of the two-day event was to develop new collaborations that advance the guiding flagship topics of EIT Health: “Innovation is interdisciplinary and so is our EIT Health community – and it is my belief that Vienna stimulated new, meaningful, and inspirational exchanges between our Partners for impactful projects toward our shared vision: healthier lives in Europe and beyond”, says Dr. Dirk Holste, Managing Director ad interim at EIT Health Austria.

Do you want to learn more about our network? Browse here through our list of Partners or check out the website of EIT Health Austria.