9th January 2023
David Hoi joined the EIT Health SCI FI programme in 2022. Read more about his impressions and learnings and why you might want to join the next edition of this EIT Health programme for scientists.
Q: Why have you decided to join the SCI FI programme of EIT Health?
David Hoi: In my PhD project investigating antimicrobial compounds as potential tuberculosis drug candidates, I worked in close collaboration with industry partners and was involved in early-on drug discovery processes. It was very rewarding for me to see, how a basic research project can actually be translated into an industry application and how much a project can benefit from an industry approach. Therefore, I started looking into programmes that could help me to learn the business basics that are necessary to understand the general processes in the industry that extend the scientific part of a project.
Q: What new insights or skills have you learned during the programme?
DH: For me personally, project management and design thinking were introduced as amazingly powerful tools, that I could immediately apply in my current work. A PhD, after all, is a project that requires good organizational skills and usually, you work in a team as well. Approaching my work in a more structured manner, from single experiments to larger sub-projects, has been a great benefit already.
Q: Any personal highlights you would like to share with us?
DH: I enjoyed working in a smaller team of five and I was surprised at what can be achieved when everybody involved brings certain skills and the right attitude to the table. In the end, all teams gave exciting presentations and the positive energy at the closing event, created by both the organizers and participants, was contagious and highly motivating.
Q: How do you intend to use the learnings of the SCI FI programme in the future?
DH: I am very much interested to get involved in the pharmaceutical industry, eventually being involved in project management. Learnings from this programme already gave me a good first impression of both the challenges of company and start-up settings.
Q: To whom would you recommend the EIT Health SCI FI programme and why?
DH: I would recommend this course to everybody who wants to learn how scientific results that have been generated over years, can be used to provide a real solution to a certain problem. We deal with data a lot, but most of the time we ourselves do not follow up on the impact that our research could have.
Find out more about the SCI FI programme 2022 closing event hosted by EIT Health Partner Boehringer Ingelheim on our Linkedin Channel or find out more about the programme in general on eithealth.eu.
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