Amit Thakker

President, Africa Health Federation

A visionary entreprenuer and an industry captain, Dr. Amit N.Thakker, has been a groundbreaking pioneer in the integration of private sector within the healthcare system inAfrica. Dr Thakker actively supports governments, corporates, health organisations and development partners to foster efective public private partnership initiatives towards improved health outcomes. He is the executive chairman of Africa Health Business, president of Africa Healthcare Federation, and the immediate past chairman of Kenya Healthcare Federation and has served as a director at LumiraDx, Seven Seas Technology, AMREF Flying Doctors. Action Aid and Ghanima Limited. As an active member of several insitutions including international business group YPO Gold (Nairobi Chapter), Dr. Thakker also chairs the University of Nairobi Alumni Medical Chapter and serves as an advisor to Asia Africa Investing & Consulting Ltd, Coalition for Blood in Africa (CoBA) and Ministry of Health, Kenya. Dr. Thakker founded Avenue Healthcare, a Kenyan based integrated private health service provider in 1995 which lead him to receive the “BestMale Entreprenuer of the Year” award by Rotary International in 1999. He also won the “Best CEO ” award by Titans Global in the Business and Professional services category in 2017 and proudly received the Chairman’s Award for Kenya Medical Asociation in 2004. Africa Health Business is a health consultancy, advisory and investment firm that aims to improve acces to quality afordable healthcare in Africa.

Andy Bleaden

Community Director, ECHAlliance

Andy Bleaden has had long career in both funding and social care going back over 25 years and has been recently working in Greater Manchester at Stockport where he specialised in Adult Social Care, Robotics, Telehealth and Telemedicine, Regeneration and Dementia. He also formed alliances with pan European groups most recently with the EIP-AHA, Coral and Covenant for Demographic Change.
In addition, he has also been working as an External Expert for the European Commission since 2013 and also with the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) on the new Health KIC and also working for the new Urban Innovation Actions as an expert.
He brings a wealth of experience and skills in securing and management of strategic external funding, procurement, innovation funding and forming and development large and complex partnerships across Europe.

Aneta Tyszkiewicz

Senior Manager Digital and Data, EFPIA

Aneta is working as Senior manager for data and digital at European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).  She is responsible for various policy and advocacy activities in relation to data, RWE and new technologies. She has previously worked for the Council of European Dentists, International Diabetes Federation and a consulting agency.

Angel Martin

Member digital working group, All Policies for a Healthy Europe

Angel Martin is Senior Director Digital Health & Taxation Advocacy EMEA for Johnson & Johnson. He leads advocacy for the Enterprise, Businesses, R&D, Supply Chain, Country strategies and Worldwide Government Affairs and Policy (WWGA&P) on Digital and Corporate Taxation. He serves on the J&J WWGA&P EMEA Leadership Team. He played a key role in building J&J’s digital policy strategy in EMEA (DiGAP) and globally (Digital and Emerging Technology Priority Platform), identifying key business-policy priorities to unlock the power of digital technologies to advance healthcare and improve patient outcomes.
Angel is currently the chair of MedTech Europe’s Digital Health Committee and AI and Data WG, and vice-chair of DIGITALEUROPE’s Digital Health Working Group.
Before joining Johnson & Johnson, Angel worked for The Dow Chemical Company after having gathered a long experience in government affairs through different sectors and organizations.
He holds a degree in Business Management and has completed academic training on AI and data sciences.

Angela Brand

Director, Digital Health Society (DHS)

Angela Brand, MD PhD MPH (USA) is Full Professor in the Department of International Health and Founding Director of the Institute for Public Health Genomics at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML) at Maastricht University as well as Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT (United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology), Maastricht, The Netherlands. She is also Dr. T.M.A. Pai Endowment Chair on Public Health Genomics and Head of the Department of Public Health Genomics at the Manipal School of Life Sciences as well as Adjunct Professor at the Prasanna School of Public Health at Manipal University (MAHE), India.

Before she worked in the clinics, at various academic institutions and in governmental bodies in the USA and Germany. She is Paediatrician, Specialist in Public Health Medicine, holds a PhD in pathology, a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Johns Hopkins University, USA, and received her habilitation from the University of Bremen, Germany, focusing on Health Technology Assessment.

She has been the pioneer of Public Health Genomics in Europe and coordinated and established successfully this field in more than 15 EU Member States within the last years via the Public Health Genomics European Network (PHGEN). She has been founder and Editor-in-Chief (2009-2017) of Public Health Genomics, the leading international journal focusing on the responsible and timely translation of genome-based knowledge and technologies into public health, health policies, and health systems. She is Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, USA, of the 21st Century Trust of the Wellcome Trust, UK, and Member of the New York Academy of Sciences.

For the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2017 she was leading Task Force 2 “Data Donors and Citizen-Controlled Data Governance” to prepare for the Digital Health Society in Europe and beyond. Currently she is Member of the Board of Directors of the Digital Health Society (https://thedigitalhealthsociety.com) enabled by the European Connected Health Alliance (ECHAlliance, www.echalliance.com), Director of the European Centre for Public Health Genomics (ECPHG), Expert on „Big Data“ of the International Consortium Personalised Medicine (IC PerMed, www.icpermed.eu) jointly coordinated by the European Commission, over 26 European Member States and Canada, and Member of the Expert Group “Global Health Foresight” of the Science Division of the World Health Organization (WHO).

She serves as Expert for the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the OECD, WHO, the EC, the German Robert Koch-Institute (RKI), Genome Canada, Science Europe, AXA Research among others. She collaborates with industry partners such as IBM, Roche, Pfizer, AMGEN, Novartis, MSD, Bayer HealthCare. Her research focus is on Public Health Genomics, Personalised Medicine & Personal Health & Care, Translational Research, AI and Big Data Analytics for Public Health, PPP, Innovation Management, and Data Governance & Cooperative Health Ecosystems (e.g. Health Data Cooperatives).

Ann Mond Johnson

CEO, American Telemedicine Association

Ann Mond Johnson is CEO of the American Telemedicine Association, overseeing the only association focused completely on advancing the adoption of telehealth. Ann is a leading voice representing a healthcare platform that many see as one of the few bright spots in the COVID-19 pandemic, focused on federal and state policy initiatives needed to ensure permanent access to telehealth services, so that everyone has access to safe, effective, and appropriate care when and where they need it. With a diverse membership including leading healthcare delivery systems, academic institutions, technology solution providers and payers, as well as partner organizations and alliances, the ATA is working to integrate virtual care into emerging value-based delivery models. This year, the ATA launched the first-ever Telehealth Awareness Week, bringing together telehealth champions and supporters from every sector of healthcare to underscore the growing value of telehealth and its critical role in care delivery.

Barbara Di Camillo

Full Professor in Computer Science, Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova

Barbara Di Camillo is Full Professor in Computer Science at the Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova. Her research activity is centered in the development and application of advanced modeling, data mining and machine learning methods for high-throughput biological data analysis in the field of bioinformatics and digital health. She has been PI and WP leader of projects funded by the EU, Italy and industry and has received numerous awards in particular in the field of reverse-engineering and machine learning applied to clinical and biological data. Currently she is the technical and scientific manager of Brainteaser H2020 European project “Bringing Artificial Intelligence Home for a Better Care of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis”

Benjamin Stöcklein

Head of International Services, Medical Valley EMN e.V. – Germany

Benjamin Stöcklein has been working since 2016 as Head of International Services at Medical Valley EMN e.V., the leading edge cluster for medical devices in Germany. In this position he supported 75+ European Start Ups and scale ups in their international acceleration through different project leads in national and European projects.

Benjamin’s expertise is in international business development into other healthcare markets.

Bleddyn Rees

Deputy Chair and Digital Health Society, ECHAlliance

Bleddyn is a vastly experienced commercial lawyer with 30 years experience of outsourcings, privatisations and complex contracting and projects. He has a unique CV for a private sector lawyer, having spent three and a half years on secondment as General Counsel of the Commercial Directorate of the Department of Health.

On his secondment to the Department of Health he advised the Minsters (Prime Minister, Secretary of State, Ministers of State), Special Advisors and NHS organisations and gave evidence to the Health Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee. Bleddyn has a very detailed understanding of the UK health sector and regulatory framework.

Brian O’connor

Chair, ECHAlliance

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Brian developed his career as a consultant, manager and investor. He has worked in the UK, US and Hong Kong and has significant experience as a company director in a variety of industries.

He is currently providing strategic advice to Governments, International organizations and companies on the challenges facing healthcare in general and specifically on the Connected Health opportunity. He created the European Connected Health Alliance, a not for profit organisation which connects Governments, Industry,Research Institutes, Health Services, Patient Groups etc through a Global Network of Ecosystems.

He is Chair of a number of innovative companies and an investor in start ups.

Carina Dantas

International Projects Manager, ECHAlliance

Carina Dantas has a degree in Law and post graduate studies in Psychotherapy, and over 20 years-experience in health and social care. Highly interested in data sharing governance, mainly in empowering citizens and fostering awareness in this area.

Besides being Senior International Projects Manager for the ECHAlliance, she is also a member of the management team of the The Digital Health Society

She is the Chair of the COST Action NET4Age-Friendly, Coordinator of the Stakeholders Network on SHAFE – Smart Healthy Age-friendly Environments and the Portuguese Network on SHAFE, Vice-President of the European Covenant on Demographic Change and Main Coordinator of group D4 of the EIP-AHA.

She is evaluator/reviewer for the European Commission, Eureka, AAL and EIT Digital; member of the Expert Team developing the EU Ethics framework for the ICT Profession, as external expert for CEN/CENELEC; and Team Leader of the group of experts designing the Reference Guidelines in the Field of Ethics, Data Privacy and Security, contracted by the AAL Programme.

Also, Carina is CEO of SHINE 2Europe, member of the Standing Committee on Policy and Advocacy of the International Health Literacy Association, the Advisory Board of Homes4life and reviewer of ICF Journal and MDPI. She has written over 200 proposals for funded projects and implemented/managed several of them, for different funding programmes.

Carla Greubel

PhD Candidate at Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University

Carla Greubel is a Ph.D. candidate in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at Utrecht University. Drawing on empirical ethics of care, she studies values relevant to ageing well in and across three interrelated contexts: the European ageing and innovation policy discourse; the GATEKEEPER project, a H2020 large-scale implementation pilot on digital innovations for ageing in place; and the everyday lives of older citizens living in pilot regions in Italy and the UK. Together with her team at Utrecht University, Carla is responsible for coordinating the co-creation line of activities in WP2 of the GATEKEEPER project, including the design and preparation of stakeholder workshops organized in nine pilot regions across seven European countries. Carla is the secretary of the Socio-gerontechnology Network.

Charalampos Vassiliou

Digital Transformation Advisor, the Hellenic Ministry of Digital Governance & Project Coordinator at Byte Computer

He received his B.Sc. in Computer Science from University of London, Queen Mary and Westfield College (UK) and his M.Sc. in Computation from University of Oxford (UK), specialising in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Currently working as a Special Advisor with the Hellenic Ministry of Digital Governance (Minister’s Office, Mr. Kyriakos Pierrakakis), providing strategic consultancy in public policy design and implementation in the fields of digital government, open government, and innovation in the public sector. He has been a scientific and technical advisor for various agencies and companies in the private and public sector, including INTRASOFT International, SingularLogic, Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce (NCHC), Hellenic Copyright Organization (OPI), and others, in information systems, web applications and new technologies with respect to various business and research domains. He has been active in various research fields and has undertaken more than 50 European and national projects in diverse areas. He is the lead Project Manager and Coordinator of SMARTWORK project.

Danny van Roijen

Digital Health Director, COCIR

Danny Van Roijen is Digital Health Director at COCIR, the leading industry voice in Europe on digital health representing the medical imaging, radiotherapy, electromedical and health IT industries. Coordinating the association’s digital health acitivities Danny focuses on European policy making, covering topics such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, data protection, interoperability and mHealth.

Danny is a member of the European Commission’s eHealth Stakeholder Group as well as the Stakeholder Cybersecurity Certification Group. Danny represents COCIR in the AI4People initiative and several EU-funded projects. On behalf of COCIR, Danny is chairing the Healthcare working group within the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Application (INATBA).

Dipak Kalra

President, European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (I~HD)

Professor Dipak Kalra, PhD, FRCGP, FBCS, plays a leading international role in research and development of Electronic Health Records, including the reuse of EHRs for research. A former London general practitioner, he has over the past 25 years led the development of standards on EHR interoperability, personal health records and data protection, and leads multiple EU Horizon 2020 and IMI projects in these areas. Dipak is President of The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (www.i-hd.eu). This is a multi-stakeholder not for profit body that supports healthcare and research organisations, and patients, to capture and reuse better quality health data. Dipak is Professor of Health Informatics at University College London, and Visiting Professor at the University of Gent.

Donna Henderson

President,  EHTEL

In her role as Head of International Engagement, Donna leads the Scottish Government’s Digital Health and Care Directorate’s International Engagement Team.  The Team’s objectives are to enhance Scotland’s reputation as a leader in digital health and care, facilitate knowledge exchange between other countries and regions, and promote economic opportunities for Scotland.

Donna has been actively involved in European projects since 2012 and was Chair of the EIP on AHA B3 Action Group on Integrated Care from  2015 to 2018.  She is currently Project Co-ordinator for the EU Health Programme funded project SCIROCCO Exchange which has developed an online self-assessment tool for regions to assess the maturity of their health and care systems for the adoption of integrated care.

In January 2021, she was appointed as President of the European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL).  She was also proud to be recognised by HIMSS as a Future50 Class of 2021 Government Leader in May 2021.

Elena Bonfiglioli

Microsoft Health and Life Sciences EMEA, Microsoft

Giovanna Ferrari

Regional Labeling Lead, Pfizer

Project Lead, Gravitate Health project

After completing a PhD in molecular biology at University College London, and a period of post-doctoral research at Kings College London, Giovanna moved into the regulatory sector of the pharmaceutical industry, specialising in the area of labelling and product information since 2009; she currently works within International Labeling Group at Pfizer with regional responsibility for Europe. Giovanna has extensive experience in the field of local labelling across the wider European region, and through this has developed a broad understanding of current regulatory requirements and trends impacting labelling. A particular area of interest of relevance to Gravitate Health is electronic labelling and in connection with this topic Giovanna is also active in a range of regional industry activities/forums. She has been involved from the earliest stages of the development of the Gravitate-Health initiative in coordinating the group of industry partners which developed the original concept and call for an IMI integrated digital health information project, intended to transform the way in which patients access, understand and apply health information in managing their health. She is now the industry Project Lead for Gravitate Health and is at the heart of strategic and project planning for this patient-focussed digital health initiative.

Gregor Cuzak

Co-founder and co-lead, HealthDay.si

Gregor Cuzak, MSc, MBA, has been one of the key organisers of the Slovenian eHealth ecosystem since 2014. He has partnered with all relevant Slovenian health stakeholders, as well as numerous internationally, such us Health 2.0 and ECHAlliance. Gregor operates as a consultant on topics of business development, data analytics and marketing. His recent focus besides digital health has been GDPR, working as a business consultant to a Slovenian international IT security and services company called Ascaldera. Gregor’s interest outside of business, and inclusive with his family with Eva, Maks and Ula, are hiking, skiing and sailing. He also has a keen interest in the arts. Gregor volunteers in several patient associations, lectures, coaches and helps his peers. Once, a long time ago, Gregor was a professional ballroom dancer.

Henriette Hansen

EU Consultant & Project Manager, South Denmark European Office (EDEN project)

Henriette has a MSc in Business administration and an MA in European Studies and has worked in the South Denmark European Office since 1999, and has in that period provided advice and counselling within the following areas; Regional Development, Social innovation, health, social inclusion and education.

A big part of her work has been to create ideas, build European consortia and write applications on behalf of South Danish local and regional actors, such as enterprises, local and regional authorities, university colleges and the university. On behalf of these actors, she has worked as project manager for the last 23 years, especially with project within the health care sector and the education sector.

Since 2012 she has participated actively in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing on behalf of the Region of Southern Denmark, making sure that the region is constantly involved , in order to keep their 4 star excellence status, and that their interests are included. Since 2009 she has been actively involved in the ERRIN Network (European Regions Research and Innovation Network) and is leading the Health Working Group within the network.

Henriette also works as an external expert towards the European Commission in relation to the evaluation of project proposals and evaluation of interim- and final reports.

Ioana-Marie Gligor

Head of Unit European Reference Networks and Digital Health, European Commission

Ioana Gligor is Head of Unit in DG SANTE, responsible for Digital Health and European Reference Networks. Ioana worked previously on health issues in DG Employment, with a focus on the European Semester and European Social Fund. Before joining DG SANTE, she worked in the Secretariat General of the European Commission, in DG Employment and Social Affairs and she started her career in European Institutions in the Cabinet of Commissioner Orban. Before joining the EU institutions, Ioana worked in the Romanian Ministry of European Integration and was spokesperson for the Chief Negotiator with the EU.
She studied political sciences and EU affairs, with a specialisation at the College of Europe in the law and economics of internal market. She has a PhD in international relations.

Jesper Kjær

Director, DKMA Data Analytics Centre

Director of The Data Analytics Centre at the Danish Medicines Agency, co-chair for HMA / EMA Big Data Steering Group. 20+ years’ experience in data management, analyses and data visualisation having worked in academia and industry. Led the development of IT systems for the World Health Organization (viral genetics) and University Hospital of Copenhagen (AI supported treatment). Supported HIV observational research by leading the development of data management and data models widely used globally. Headed activities in EU Framework Programmes (EuroSIDA, EuroCoord, COHERE, CHAIN etc), TransCelerate Biopharma (eSource) and HL7 (Project Vulcan). Currently the Data Analytics Centre and the Danish Medicines Agency is involved in establishing patient level data analysis of both RCT and RWD to support the regulatory processes.

Juha Paakkola

Director, Health Capital Helsinki

I lead Health Capital Helsinki (HCH), a health & life science ecosystem developing program, supported and funded by the largest cities, leading universities and the main hospital in Finland.

Before joining HCH 2019, I did a long career in big pharma and biotech industry. Previous 8 years I was the country manager for Sandoz (a Novartis company) in Finland. I also have 10-year experience from GSK, leading several key business areas in Finland. I am biochemist from the University of Helsinki.

Health Capital Helsinki is building the greatest health capital in Helsinki.

Julien Venne

Non Executive Director, ECHAlliance

Naturally evolving in an international environment (fluent in English, French and Spanish), passionate about digital transformation & social impact, Julien is an experienced C-level executive with track records in large corporates, start-ups, governments & public authorities, hospitals, universities and non-profit organisations.

Highly-skilled in strategic thinking, Julien supports the innovation in public and private organisations, around public policies, services & investments design, business modelling, market access & business development tactics, ecosystems building, customers’ engagement, marketing & communication.

As an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, Julien is designing digital products and services aiming to improve people’s life such as personalised health and wellbeing programmes, behaviours change strategies and solutions, digital platforms and mobile apps, GovTech & CivicTech, smart human cities, etc.

As a researcher, Julien is affiliated to the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT), the University of Maastricht (Netherlands) and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (India). His researches focus on digital transformation, data governance and digital trustworthiness, digital democracy, behavioural sciences, health and wellbeing, public and international health.

Involved in ECHAlliance almost since its beginning, Julien has been Director of Strategy and Innovation during 5 years and now he’s Board Director in charge of the Digital Health Observatory (DHO) and the scientific content of our activities, as well as of the deployment of partnerships and ecosystems in Latin America. He’s also Board member of the Digital Health Society (DHS) and member of the Council of the Global Health Connector Partnership.

Julien is also regularly speaking at international events.

Karolina Mackiewicz

Innovation Director, ECHAlliance

Karolina Mackiewicz (MA Political Sciences, MA Futures Studies) has over 12 years of professional experience in international projects in the area of health and wellbeing.
She worked for the WHO European Healthy Cities network, leading the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Cities and Urban Health in the Baltic Sea Region, and the Development Manager at MyData Global – an international non-for-profit advocating for a human-centric approach to personal data. When it comes to digital health, she is especially interested in how technology and data can support the sustainable health systems of tomorrow, health literacy and socio-economic determinants of health.

Karolina has developed and led numerous international projects and cooperated with the EC, OECD, World Bank and other key regional and national stakeholders.
Her professional mission is to bring bridges between the different sectors for a more just and sustainable future.

Katrina Lowes

Head of Customer & Partner Co-creation, Vodafone Business

Katrina Lowes leads the Vodafone Centre for Health with Deloitte.  She works with some of the world’s largest organisations bringing together technology and humans to create new health outcomes and build a better future for all.

With more than 25 years’ experience as a global marketing leader in the communications, technology and healthcare industries, Katrina has worked in Europe, USA, Africa and Asia.

She is a passionate diversity champion, has a BA(Hons) in Business Studies and Marketing and lives in London, UK.

Laura Cande

Policy and Projects Consultant, European Health Management Association

Laura is a policy and projects consultant at the European Health Management Association, where she coordinates the work of the Scientific Advisory Committee, the Annual Conference Committee, and the Conference Rapporteurs Programme; as well as projects on the upskilling of the health workforce, health management digital skills, and process improvement. She is an experienced health manager having worked as a coordinator in quality and process improvement projects to increase efficiency, compliance with legislation requirements, and patient satisfaction in the United States. In Haiti she oversaw project implementation in various international non-governmental organisations in humanitarian emergency response and development. Laura holds a Master’s in Public Health Sciences with a focus on health policy & systems, from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is a native speaker of English, French and Haitian Creole.

Maritta Perälä-Heape

Board Director, the DHS

Maritta Perälä-Heape, Professor of practice in data-enabled health care solutions and innovation ecosystems; Director at the Centre for Health and Technology (https://www.oulu.fi/cht/), Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.

She develops multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder RDI network cooperation between research institutes, companies, and health service providers. She develops cooperation between regional, national, and international knowledge partnerships and digital health innovation networks. In the OuluHealth ecosystem, she leads the Oulu Innovation Alliance’s spear head program: Data enabled solutions as a part of predictive and supportive healthcare.
Her main interest is to strengthen the health data management skills and secondary use of data, thus enabling data-driven innovation and creating new value for health data as part of proactive and personalized health care. She leads and develops the national partnership network within HyteAiro program (AI in health data analytics) and the thematic National Innovation Ecosystem Collaboration Network for well-being and health data (HYTKI) between five ecosystems/regions in Finland.

Martin Curley

Director Digital Transformation and Open Innovation, Health Service Executive

Martin Curley is Director of the Digital Transformation and Open Innovation at the Health Service Executive (HSE), helping enable the digital transformation of Ireland’s health service. Most recently Martin was Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the HSE. Prior to joining the HSE Martin was Senior Vice President and group head for Global Digital Practice at Mastercard. Previously Martin was vice president at Intel Corporation and Director/GM of Intel Labs Europe, Intel’s network of more than 50 research labs which he helped grow across the European region. He also served as a senior principal engineer at Intel Labs Europe leading Intel’s research and innovation engagement with the European Commission and the broader European Union research ecosystem. Prior to this Curley was Global Director of IT Innovation and Director of IT Strategy and Technology at Intel. Earlier in his Intel career, he held a number of senior positions for Intel in the United States and Europe. He also worked in research and management positions at GE in Ireland and Philips in the Netherlands.

Martin has a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering and a master’s degree in business studies, both from University College Dublin, Ireland. He received his Ph.D. in information systems from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Curley is the author of eight books on technology management for value, innovation and entrepreneurship. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, the British Computer Society and, the Irish Computer Society.

Martin is co-founder of the Innovation Value Institute at Maynooth University, a unique industry-academia collaboration driving research and development of advanced IT and Digital maturity frameworks. He was previously a visiting scholar at MIT Sloan Centre for Information Systems Research and a visiting research fellow at the CERN Open Lab in Geneva. He was the inaugural winner of the Engineers Ireland Innovation engineer of the year in 2006 and was jointly awarded European Chief Technology Officer of the year for 2015-2016.

Michael Strubin

Director Digital Health, MedTech Europe

Michael Strübin is Director Digital Health at MedTech Europe, the European trade association for the medical technology industry including diagnostics, medical devices and digital health. Michael helps develop the medtech industry’s voice in the digital health field and represents MedTech Europe’s members vis-à-vis digital health policymakers and stakeholders.  Prior to joining Medtech Europe in 2018, Michael worked for other associations in the digital health field including the Continua Health Alliance and HIMSS.  Michael lives with his family in Brussels, Belgium

Michele Calabrò

Policy Adviser, European Patients’​ Forum

Michele is Policy Adviser at the European Patients’ Forum where he leads the Forum’s activities on digital health policy and support advocacy activities on a number of other key topics. As EPF PA he also co-lead the activities of the EU4Health Civil Society Alliance (www.eu4health.eu) and coordinate EPF’s engagement with multi-stakeholder initiatives and with the European Parliament.

Before joining EPF in 2020, Michele worked as Policy and Communications Manager at the European Health Management Association (EHMA) (2016-2020), where he coordinated policy and communication activities and EU funded projects work, such as with TO-REACH, focused on health systems research, and IC-Health, focused on digital health literacy.

Natalia Allegretti

International Projects Manager, ECH Alliance 

Natalia holds a University degree in Economics and Trade at University of Rome “La Sapienza” (Italy). Since graduating from university, she has been working for over 20 years in an international context dealing with funds raising, mostly as part of complex ICT based research and development projects. Natalia has acquired a detailed knowledge of the functioning of the European Commission funding programmes, having the chance to follow a large number of project ideas belonging to different research and scientist groups that were seeking for funding or co-funding opportunities. In this framework, her principal responsibilities were related to the project proposals preparation and management, and in case of funding award, these responsibilities extended to the administrative and content management of the project, including but not limited to activities concerning contractual, budgeting, costing, reporting, first and second level auditing, results’ dissemination and project organisational issues. In order to efficiently cope with the complexity and diversity of project activities and different disciplines, her work is always executed in close collaboration with the sector’s experts that participate in the project. Exposure to the above professional experiences have given Natalia the possibility of acquiring organisational and interpersonal skills to manage the teamwork in an efficient and effective way and have enhanced her communication and problems solving capacities. Natalia has also delivered a number of training courses on the subjects of the European Union policies and European Commission funding programmes, deepening the technicalities related to the operational preparation and management of co-funded projects. In the last years, she has acquired a thorough knowledge in the management of projects, enabled and supported by innovative ICT solutions, focussed on eHealth, chronicity management and frailty prevention.

Nick Schneider

Head of Division 511 on new technologies and data use, German Federal Ministry of Health

Nick Schneider leads the division on new technologies and data use at the German Federal Ministry of Health. He was born and raised in Latin America and studied medicine in Heidelberg. After several years of involvement in EU health politics, he performed a postdoctoral fellowship in health policy research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Between 2008 and 2011 he worked at the Unit for Cancer Prevention of the German Cancer Research Center. Since 2011 he joined the German Federal Ministry of Health, where he inter alia coordinatead the negotiations to the EU General Data Protection Regulation and its implementation into health law on federal level.

Nigel Hughes

Director Integrative Healthcare Informatics, Janssen Research and Development

Nigel Hughes has a thirty-six year career spanning the NHS in the UK (16 years), NGOs and patient organisations (10 years) and within the pharmaceutical industry (18 years). He has worked clinically in HIV and viral hepatitis, liver disease, and in sales & marketing, medical affairs, market access and health economics, R&D, precision medicine, advanced diagnostics, health IT and Real World Data/Real World Medicine. His experience covers clinical, education, as an advisor, consulting, communications and lobbying over the years. He is currently the Project Lead for the IMI2 European Health Data & Evidence Network (EHDEN), and was Platform Co-Lead for the IMI1 European Medical Information Framework (EMIF), as well as consulting on numerous projects and programmes in the domain of RWD/RWE.

Piret Hirv

Head of Health Technology Division, Connected Health Cluster Manager at Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol

Piret Hirv is the Manager of Connected Health Cluster and the leader of the health-tech division in Science Park Tehnopol.
She is a member in international health technology networks, facilitating the development of healthcare services through the implementation of connected health solutions, and to find partners to scale-up innovative solutions. Prior to working at Tehnopol, Piret worked as an Advisor for E-Servies and Innovation at the Ministry of Social Affairs in Estonia, supporting the digital transformation processes in healthcare and innovation. She took part in implementing Estonian EU Presidency eHealth policy program and was acting as a liaison officer for international organizations and networks coordinating cross-border healthcare-service activities.
Piret has a medical background: she is a trained nurse and has worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

Rachel Dunscombe

Board Director, the Digital Health Society

Rachel Dunscombe is CEO of the NHS Digital Academy and global lead for the KLAS Arch collaborative – a group of organisations creating academic quality evidence for Digitisation. She was formerly the CIO of the Salford Royal/NCA Group one of the 2 most digitally mature organisations in the NHS. She has worked across the health, care system as well as in the private sector and Europe. She is currently visiting professor at Imperial College London and a member of the UK government’s AI Council.

Rajendra Pratap Gupta

Founder, Health Parliament – India 

Rajendra Pratap Gupta (Rajendra) is a public policy expert who has been contributing to policy making for over a decade.

Rajendra has worked with some of the largest organisations across the world and was nominated to the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum for 2012-2014 in recognition of his work. He has served at senior-most levels at fortune 20 & fortune 500 companies in India. Besides, he has been invited by global organizations like the United Nations, UNESCO, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, World Health Organization, World Economic Forum, ITU ( oldest UN body), United States of America, Govt. of Japan, Algeria, Finland & Bangladesh, and also by the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Human Resource Development , Ministry of Labour and Employment & The Planning Commission – Government of India, for his views on diverse range of topics. He played an important role in drafting public policies and became the youngest person to draft the election manifesto of BJP . He also played a key role in drafting the BJP’s Lok Sabha Election Manifesto in 2014. He has played an important role in drafting the National Health Policy 2017, National Education Policy, the policy ( schemes ) for Building & other Construction Workers (BOCW) – Ministry of Labour & Employment & the State Health Policy for Uttar Pradesh. He is the founder of HIMSS India , Disease Management Association of India , Continua India , PCHA India and the Government Industry Dialogue Initiative. He was recognised for his contribution in 2012 by the sheriff of Los Angeles; named the ‘Thought Leader of the Year’ three years in a row by ICT Post; Featured amongst the ’25 living Legends of Healthcare in India’ and nominated to World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council. He has authored five best-selling books 1)Healthcare Reforms in India – Making up for the lost decades 2) Your Vote is Not Enough 3) Your Degree is Not Enough 4) Tough Choices & Hard Decisions- Rebuilding India : The Next 25 Years 5) Digital Health – Truly Transformational.

Currently, he divides his time between public policy work and consultancy / advisory roles across geographies.

Ron Roozendaal

Co Chair, Ministerie van VWS

Ron Roozendaal is director of Information Policy and CIO of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. He is responsible for Information Policy in the health care sector (e.g. big data, cybersecurity, cybersecurity, identification and authentication and interoperability), the functioning of the Dutch Healthcare Information Council and quality assurance as to the aspect of information and ICT in the activities of the Ministry. Furthermore, he is also the director of the Programme Directorate tasked with the development of digital solutions to address the COVID-19 pandemic, e.g. national notification app (CoronaMelder) and now the test and vaccination certificate app. Prior, he worked as Ministry of Agriculture (CIO) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Saara Malkamäki

Specialist, Sitra

Saara Malkamäki works as a Specialist in Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund − a future-oriented public think-do-and-connect tank. Saara builds a fair data economy and promotes the use of health data in Finland and Europe. Saara’s goal is to make data move across organisations, also across national borders, and to create common rules and solutions for fair, value-added data use. Over the past few years Saara has been advancing health and social care innovations and setting up a one-stop shop for Finnish well-being data. Her focus is on health data ecosystems and business models. Creating a better future is what Saara does and is passionate about.

Sohail Nourestani

E-Health & Market Intelligence Consultant, Eurosanté

Sohail graduated with a double degree in Political Science and Project Management, with a focus on innovation and IT in different sectors: telecommunication, Industry 4.0 and Health. Sohail works within Eurasanté as an E-Health Specialist and Business Consultant and has got 10 years of relevant professional expertise around project management, detection and analyze of market disruptive innovations. Within Eurasanté, Sohail helps companies (mostly startups) to define the needs of their customers, to provide the right strategy framework, to validate their innovation & business model roadmaps. The main goal for our team of experts is to help SME’s to have a successful market entry by providing consulting services (Market Study, Strategy framework, Finance, HR, Regulation, Market Access) to startups and SME’s in the healthcare sector.

Tapani Piha

Special Adviser, Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health & Sitra

Tapani Piha worked in the European Commission from 2001, serving as Head of Unit for 14 years. Since 2019, he has advised the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra on digital health, use of health data and the EU. In the Commission he was responsible, inter alia, for digital transformation in health, the European Reference Networks for rare diseases, Directive on patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare, as well as developing policies on Health Technology Assessment (HTA). He has a medical specialist degree in public health. He served the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and coordinated Finland’s EU policies in health during 1995-2001. At the WHO Regional Office for Europe in 1989-94 he was responsible for the Action Plan for a Tobacco-Free Europe.

Tim Andrews

Chief Operating Officer, ORCHA

Tim is an innovative entrepreneur with an extensive background in technology and outsourcing in both the public and private sectors. Tim has focussed on the health and social care environment for the past 10 years and co-founded ORCHA based on his passionate belief in the opportunity that Digital Health offered this exciting but challenging landscape. A lawyer by background, Tim specialised in technology and commercial law and became an expert in the emerging dot.com and ecommerce environment. He moved from private practice and took on a number of General Counsel and Commercial Director roles in technology and outsourcing businesses, developing some of the most groundbreaking and sophisticated contracts in both the public and private spheres during that time. Tim moved into Healthcare in the commissioning space, initially supporting many NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups and fledgling NHS Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) before taking on the role of Managing Director of a CSU for a period. He co-founded ORCHA and has been responsible for all aspects of the various ORCHA Reviews since its inception. Tim has supported the development and delivery of Digital Health assessment and accreditation models and approaches for a wide array of pan-national, national and regional bodies and is a recognised authority on these approaches.

Trine Ungermann Fredskild

Head of Innovation and Digital Training, University hospital of Southern Denmark

Trine Ungermann Fredskild, MSc in Nursing from the Faculty of Health, Aarhus University, and Ph.D. from Southern Denmark University in 2008.
She has worked as an external associate professor for many years, and is currently employed at the Department of Public Health at Aarhus University and Senior Consultant at the Learning and Research Centre of Southern Jutland Hospital. As a researcher she has written books, chapters and articles dealing with implementation of technology and change processes in the health care sector.
Trine has worked for many years in project management with projects related to technology in health education (research field), including project management related to welfare technological educational activities in health education training areas, as well as in the health

Vanja Vasiljev

MSc, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Department of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Medicine

Vanja Vasiljev works as Associate Professor at the Department of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Rijeka. Working at the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, and finishing her dissertation in the field of Experimental Microbiology, her scientific and research interests are devoted to the Public Health. She was working on several successful European (ENRETE, IPA-CLOUD, UHCE 2.0, SEFAC) and national scientific projects (EURO-BIO-ACT, EH-UH2). Current H2020 project in which she is engaged is ValueCare (GA No. 875215) – Value-based methodology for integrated care supported by ICT, where she leads work package VALUECARE pilot`s implementation and coordinate the implementation of the project methodology in seven large scale European pilots. The aim of her work is to improve the quality of life and lifestyles of citizens throughout their life cycle. Disease prevention and lifestyle improvement of the senior citizens are in the focus of her work.