Having already announced our first few speakers in an article earlier this month, we’re excited to announce a few more names who’ll take the spotlight on our non-stop-action single stage at Health.Pioneers in Vienna on October 10th.
Fittingly for what will be World Mental Health Day, we’re proud to be hosting psychotherapist Benjamin Fry. As the founder of NeuralSolution, as well as an author and broadcaster, his mission is to make ground-breaking emotional and mental health treatment accessible across the United Kingdom and beyond. A former mental patient himself, Fry will talk about demystifying the field.
We’ll also be welcoming Professor Siegfried Meryn of the Medical University of Vienna. As General Secretary of the International Society of Men’s Health, and the man behind preventive healthcare initiatives, he’ll bring perspectives from a variety of angles.
The audience will also get to hear from Verena Kretschmann, Head of European Operations at Medicus, an AI-based platform that converts health data into an interactive experience with personalized insights and smart coaching for the user’s wellbeing. She’ll be taking part in our Open Innovation panel discussion, which will delve into the power of collaboration between startups and corporates.
We’ve also confirmed the 10 pitching and 15 exhibiting startups for the event. This small group has been hand-selected from over 200 applications, and represents a variety of the most innovative companies in the healthcare scene.
The Health.Pioneers Challenge Award Powered by UNIQA pitching contest will be divided into two pitching tracks, with each startup having three minutes to convince the jury of their solution’s ultimate potential and win a pitching slot at Pioneers’19, our flagship event on May 9th-10th next year.
Among those pitching in the Digital Health track will be Germany’s Doctorly, whose software solution helps doctors simplify and speed up administrative tasks in their practices, Cognuse, an Estonian startup offering a comprehensive rehabilitation platform, and GoClinic, who will get the chance to explain more about their Blockchain-based digital healthcare system.
In the Medical Technology track, the audience will hear from companies such as London-based ThinkSono, which has developed a hand-held Deep Vein Thrombosis detection device, and ‘protein superpowering’ startup VALANX Biotech. MicroQuin and CytoSwitch, mentioned in our previous blog, have also been chosen to pitch in this track.
Their fates will hang in the hands of our jury of industry experts, who’ll be travelling from as far afield as Texas to join us in Vienna.
The confirmed jury members are:
Dr Hubert Zajicek (Health Wildcatters)
Casper Smeets (Rockstart Digital Health)
Tony Chang (Merck Ventures)
Philipp Ritterhaus (HTGF)
Katharina Ehrenfellner (CONDA)
Lucanus Polagnoli (Speedinvest)
Peter Lasinger (capital300)
Nikolaus Wrabetz (UNIQA)
Andreas Nemeth, CEO at our partner UNIQA Ventures, is already excited about the power of the new technological solutions these hopeful founders will be pitching.
"I see exponential medical technologies as a key catalyst for innovation and transformation of the healthcare system," he says. “I believe in the transformative power startups have on changing entire industries, and this will play out in healthcare too.”
There’ll be plenty of exponential technologies in the exhibition area too, led by our Pioneers’19 winning startup SzeleSTIM, who will show off the latest iteration of their chronic pain treatment earpiece solution.
A few of the other exhibiting startups include Active Wearables, Braincontrol, Cooltec, HappyMed, ReFlex and VivoSensMedical.
Meanwhile, in keeping with our growing tradition of offering a dedicated program for Series A startups at our events, we’ll be running a ‘Hot Seat’ session on the topic of raising follow-on funding. In this discussion, founders will have the chance to pick the brains of a panel experienced investors.
There will also be opportunities for them to gain one-on-one life sciences-specific insights in the Office Hours session, and to learn about startup-corporate collaboration in a workshop run by Pioneers Discover.
There’s still time to buy Health.Pioneers tickets…just head here!
