Text by:
European Hospital and Healthcare Federation (HOPE)
14 November 2023, Düsseldorf
As a follow-up to the event organised in the Netherlands a year earlier, a second networking workshop took place on 14 November 2023 at Medica in Düsseldorf, Germany, the world’s leading medical technology trade fair. This workshop adopted a speed-dating format featuring short (3-4 mins) introductory elevator pitches, followed by more in-depth conversations between the project partners and invited external stakeholders.
Together with two other EU-funded projects, AICCELERATE and AIDPATH, the HosmartAI team also hosted a joint booth at Medica, which allowed for the dissemination of pilot-specific information and narratives, oral and video presentations given by the project partners, as well as the initiation of targeted and ad hoc professional contacts with other exhibitors and trade fair attendees.
Find more information about the progress of the different HosmartAI solutions here.
Purpose
Having already received initial feedback on the different pilot solutions from AI experts in 2022, the Medica workshop aimed to connect the HosmartAI partners and pre-selected external parties with a proven vested business, research or operational interest in AI and robotics solutions.
A key purpose of the workshop was to allow the project partners to engage more intensely in discussions focusing on the real-world market value of their (near-final) pilot solutions, the associated business strategies, as well as possibilities for further development / integration, against the backdrop of a busy and highly competitive international trade fair.
Consequently, during the workshop and throughout HosmartAI’s four-day presence at Medica, the project partners had ample opportunities to develop and hone their aptitude to promote their business propositions to an audience of peers, innovators and experts. This experience provided an important prelude to the final phase of the project.
Workshop participants
External workshop participants were carefully selected to include a mix of entities (hospitals, medical technology and software companies, researchers, AI innovation hubs, consultants) based in nine different European countries. The following organisations were represented:
- BMD Software (Portugal)
- Erasmus MC (Netherlands)
- Independent Consultant/former hospital CEO (Estonia)
- German Hospital Association
- Resmonics AG (Switzerland)
- Ambee (Netherlands)
- UK Essen/ Smart Hospital North-Rhine-Westphalia (Germany)
- Global Logic (Slovakia)
- Health Valley Netherlands
- Diversido (Ukraine)
- Evondos (AICCELERATE project, Finland)
- Nuromedia (AICCELERATE project, Germany)
- SRDC (AICCELERATE project, Turkey)
Including the HosmartAI team, comprised of representatives of nearly all of the pilots, about 30 people attended the speed-dating workshop.
The value of networking
The workshop facilitated over 100 different conversations between the project partners and invited guests. All participants were encouraged to enter the conversations with a wide-open mind to explore synergies between their respective professional focus areas, with a view to expanding the evolving HosmartAI ecosystem and initiating potential collaborations.
Furthermore, the project partners were encouraged to make effective use of the extensive networking forum provided by the Medica trade fair by way of pre-arranged and ad hoc meetings and conversations with other exhibitors and visitors. At the joint project booth, hands-on demonstrations and presentations were given by the partners to capture the interest of trade show visitors.
Seizing the chance to promote HosmartAI amongst Medica visitors with an interest in health data spaces, project coordinator Thanasis Poulakidas raised awareness of the project’s vision and goals during a panel discussion at Medica’s Health IT Forum.
HosmartAI’s presence at Medica thus offered diverse market exploration opportunities for individual partners based on their preferences, and it also provided some useful lessons learnt. This includes the recognition that successfully navigating such a large exposition is at least partly dependent on the partners’ available (human and financial) resources for preparation, in situ networking, and follow-up. At the same time, partners arrived with different expectations and intentions given that not all pilot solutions will be brought to market. The fact that clinical studies were still underway also meant that for some project partners it was premature to disclose all available information pertaining to their solutions.
Conclusion and outlook
The second external stakeholder workshop, coupled with the demos and conversations that took place at the joint project booth, activated a large amount of new professional contacts, some of which could become useful for future collaborations and for growing the HosmartAI ecosystem.
The workshop also allowed the project partners to receive more tailored information on their solutions’ market and use value as perceived by representatives of other companies active in this sphere, healthcare institutions and AI / robotics research and operational networks.
The chance to connect with and exchange project-relevant insights with members of the AICCELERATE and AIDPATH teams was a much appreciated benefit of hosting a joint booth.
The final stage of the project will involve finalising the clinical studies and publish the results. A final HosmartAI pitching event. addressing a more tailored audience for market exploitation, will take place in May 2024.
Overall, the feedback received on Medica was mostly positive, the external stakeholders having expressed their enthusiasm for the dynamic and informal format of the workshop, combined with the opportunity to receive first-hand, personalised information about the near-final pilot solutions.
For the project partners, Medica primarily offered some new inputs and subjective understandings not yet considered in the previous phase of the project, new professional leads for follow-up, as well as a chance to adopt a profile-raising “business mindset” that will be essential during HosmartAI’s last stage.
