EIT Health Alumni Summit 2021 
 

On 24 – 26th November, the annual EIT Health Alumni Summit 2021  took off to a boisterous start, albeit virtually as are most events today. The members at EIT Health Alumni have contributed to making this world a safer place in many ways, especially over the past two years of this pandemic. We salute their efforts and in honour of it, the theme of this year's summit is built around the concept of One Health. A theme that matches the diversity and multidisciplinary nature of our community, and reflects our continued mission to strengthen our connections and collaborations with the other EIT Alumni Communities in 2022 and beyond. 
 

What is One Health? ‘One Health’ is a multi-disciplinary approach to designing and implementing programmes and policies, in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes. One Health is an approach that recognizes that the health of people is closely connected to animals and our shared environment.

Throughout the three days, we got to hear talks from experts on topics such as regulation & the funding process, a panel discussion on One Health, pitches from innovators in the community, the roller coaster journey of startups from the entrepreneurs, and much more. There were plenty of opportunities for networking spread through all three days and it facilitated wonderful discussions among the audience. 
 
As a bonus, we ended the summit with a Cocktail/Mocktail night where a bartender joined us from an 18th-century castle in Ireland and guided us to make our own drinks for the evening. All in all, the summit managed to successfully bring together professionals from the healthcare sector to connect, collaborate and network on our current and future health systems.   
 

Summary of Day 01  
 
The Summit opening was preceded by a Career Fair organised by EIT Health’s new WorkInHealth programme. In this event, companies, and recruiters from MedTech, Biotech, and Digital Health sectors were able to interact with 100+ EIT Health Master and PhD students and attract the topmost talent for their projects. A few of the notable organisations present were, Salvus Health, Medtronic, SG Papertronics, Veristat Europe, Vall d’Hebron Institute, Xpeer, Orbit Health, Healthy Feminist, and much more. Here is a complete list of all the career fair exhibitors. 

The grand opening of the summit was later in the evening where we were joined by attendees from around the world. To begin with, the Board members introduced how the EIT Heath Alumni network has supported their professional growth and development and highlighted their favourite aspects of the Alumni platform.  

➡️Next, we dove into the main session of the evening. A talk by Mr Ishai Shamir, CEO of Argentum Solutions from Israel on ‘Funding Opportunity for Life Science companies with Argentum’. Mr Shamir spoke on different funding opportunities that exist within the EU infrastructure at local, national, and at continental levels. He shared his knowledge about the different types of funding along with the types of teams eligible for them. From concepts such as bilateral programmes, cascade funding, consortiums, etc, he gave a detailed breakdown of the processes involved and shared a few tips and tricks to succeed. He also spoke about the role accelerators such as the EIC Accelerator (which EIT Health start-ups can have boosted access through the Fast Track programme), EIC Pathfinder, Eurostars can play in bringing healthcare innovations to the market. 

In a follow-up message from Mr Shamir, Argentum has offered one-on-one consulting sessions with event attendees who are interested in pursuing the non-dilutive funding path in the EU.  

To book your session, send a quick email with the name of your start-up and a link to your platform profile to: [email protected]

After an intense and exciting talk on funding processes, it was time to move to the parallel sessions.  

➡️For the parallel session I, we were joined by Dr Sigalit Ariely-Portnoy, Co-Founder of GSAP  who shared her insights about the start-up world in the healthcare sector and in particular about the different regulatory challenges that need to be overcome to bring a product from concept to reality. She spoke about Medical Device Regulatory Affairs and the different Verification and Validation processes involved in it. She also gave a brief intro to the new classifications created to expedite digital health products in the EU and US markets.  
 
➡️For parallel session II, we were joined by Dr Jagadeesh Gandla, Freelance Healthcare Consultant and a former member of the EIT Health Alumni Board, to talk about writing a winning CV/resume. Along with explaining the difference between the two formats, he shared with us some tricks, do’s, and don’ts to write a successful application.  

Summary of Day 02 
 

Day 02 begins once again begins with a friendly greeting by our moderator @Declan Hannigan who was joining us from Ireland. Declan along with @Robin Maxton gave us a summary of the events on Day 01.  

Before we dived into the main session, we were joined by our new EIT Alumni President, Anca del Rio from Zurich, Switzerland. EIT Alumni is a ‘network of networks’ and comprises of 8 (+1 in 2022) EIT Alumni Communities (EIT Health, EIT Digital, EIT InnoEnergy, EIT Raw materials, EIT Food, EIT Climate-KIC, EIT Urban Mobility, EIT Manufacturing, and upcoming EIT Culture and Creativity) 
 
Anca also gave us a brief introduction to the biggest event of the year from EIT Alumni called EIT Connect. It is an annual conglomeration of alumni from all EIT Communities to Connect, Collaborate and Innovate with fellow entrepreneurs and like-minded alumni. EIT Connect will be held virtually on 11th December 2021. The topic for this year is ‘Innovation for Impact and Positive Change: Moving from Words to Action.’ To learn more about EIT Connect and to register for the event, click here. 

➡️We move on to the main session of the evening, Innovating One Health: A Multidisciplinary approach. Joining us for the evening were 4 speakers, each an expert in their field of work, to throw more light on One Health and what it means to the EIT Health Alumni Community. The speakers Chaitanya Dhumasker (CEO, Monitorfish), Sara Perestrelo (Veterinarian & Research Assistant, BfR), Soham Datta (Medical consultant in Oncology and Immunology, NineSigma), and Bernardo Gomes (Public Health Doctor, Porto, Portugal) one by one gave an intro of how they approach the topic of One Health and its importance to maintain public health across the world.  

During the discussion, the speakers uncovered the ways in which the health of animals, humans, and the environment are interlinked. Using examples of previous health epidemics such as SARS, Minimata, and the current COVID-19 pandemic, they highlighted the need to collaborate between different sectors of societies. They all agreed that along with medical doctors, veterinarians, anthropologists, and environmentalists, there is a significant need to involve policymakers, activists, engineers, and the media fraternity to not just spread awareness but to create systems where the health of animals, humans, and the environment is kept in check. The speakers spoke about the knowledge gap that exists today and how it can be overcome through better and faster communication between different professions. The speakers also reminded us that to establish a successful One Health framework, all major nations across the world need to join hands and make it a priority. The speakers clarified that moving ahead does not mean stopping all current practices and disrupting major systems but finding ways to implement sustainable and viable alternatives in current systems without overexploiting the limited resources of the planet.  
 

The speakers believed that while it may seem relatively easier to change systems, changing human behaviours and practices is far more difficult. However, they remain optimistic that given the power of the internet and human will, it is possible to spread awareness on One Health on a much larger scale than ever before. Lastly, the discussion ended with an appeal to the audience to make themselves more aware of the topic and engage in discussion with their friends, family, colleagues, and peers. It is only through collective action we can achieve significant results and, in this journey, every voice counts! 

 As a community, we plan to continue to explore the topic of One Health in 2022, and the speakers have since joined our network to support us in this goal!  
 

Moving ahead... 
 
EIT Health Alumni Community comprises innovators building unique solutions to our healthcare challenges while designing the healthcare systems of the future. For our next session, we were joined by 3 such innovators who shared their innovative ideas and projects with us.  
 

➡️In this session,  

• 👩‍🔬Celia Cruz of Complear Health shared her digital platform and the future operating system for automating regulatory and compliance for Digital Health.  

• 📱 Salvador Severich of Salvus Health shared his solutions on empowering people to take control of health by making medical innovations easily accessible to the public.  

• 🔭Brian Wong shared his project on Health Innovation & Entrepreneurship, developed for equitable future of healthcare through fit for purpose, and digitally-enabled health systems 

To give a glimpse of how EIT Health supports innovation in healthcare, we were joined by Maria Fernandez, Innovation Manager at EIT Health who grabbed an opportunity in the summit to announce the winners of the EIT Health Bootcamp tour 2021.  
 

➡️4 teams were announced as winners and were awarded vouchers for EIT Health ULab accelerators worth 7500 EUR each. The winners were:  

• 💊Fada Medical - Improving insulin delivery for people with type 1 diabetes.  

• 🚶Roowalk – Improving the lives of children living with mobility impairments 

• 🧑‍💻Skinlync Ltd - A digital skin-health platform that simplifies and improves self-management of common skin conditions. 

• 🪥 Empident GmbH - The first Digital Dental Protection for home.

Summary of Day 03

On the final day of the summit, we had two main sessions along with opportunities for Speed dating and networking in between.  
 
➡️We began the evening with talks from three successful start-ups and their founders who gave a glimpse of the roller coaster journey they had to go through to get their product/service in the market. They spoke not just about the professional challenges of building a team but also their personal struggles along the way. They all shared a common feeling that it is their strong will and commitment that pushed them at every stage of the process and are incredibly grateful to have gone through such a journey.  

The 3 start-ups that presented their journeys are: 

• MOWOOT, Markus Wilhelms, CEO 
  Mowoot is the HealthTech company (usMima SL) that in collaboration with the neuro-rehabilitation centre Institut Guttmann (Barcelona) has developed and tested Mowoot: the medical device to solve chronic constipation. Mowoot, certified class IIa, is a new, non-pharmacological and non-invasive solution inspired by the abdominal massage that therapists administer to their patients to relieve chronic constipation.  
   

• ReLink by TADA Medical AB, Katarina Hedbeck, CEO & Co-founder & Dr Rebecca Bejhed, COO & Co-founder 
  ReLink is an advanced breakaway connector for IV lines, designed to reduce complications and costs associated with accidental disconnection events in healthcare settings, a leading challenge in hospital and homecare infusions. The patented ReLink platform technology will enable healthcare providers to deliver critical fluids safely and efficiently. 
   

• Loop Diagnostics , Enrique Hernandez, CEO 
  Loop Diagnostics is developing a new lateral flow platform for diagnosing sepsis in the early phase, where the current diagnostics fail. A consortium led by the Barcelona-based company recently received EU funding to bring the technology to market and the current plan is to have disposable assays available commercially in 2022 

After this session, we had several rounds of speed dating for networking and we ended with a cocktail/mocktail night session in the lounge section where the members kept the discussion going. 

We (the EIT Health Alumni team) are obliged to the wonderful speakers who shared with us their ideas, insights, and opinions are various subject matter. We thank the volunteers and moderators who ensured the summit ran smoothly. And lastly, we are incredibly grateful to all the audience members for their lively participation and interaction throughout the summit. As we come to an end for this year, the interactions we had with you, the energy and passion that you shared have motivated us to bring you more such wonderful events and activities for the next year. Until then, we wish you all a wonderful and safe festive season with your friends and family. See you soon in 2022!  


 

Summit Overview