Sunday
13th March
Business and Innovation – The Creative Brain in Action
Business and Innovation, Neuroscience and Creativity
The application of creativity and neuroscience in tech and innovation, business and care. Contributors from Singapore to USA connect with Irish innovation.
The video below which was first broadcast on St Patricks Festival TV as a ‘taster’ of the day.
10.00–10.30
Introduction: Neuroscience, Creativity, Business, Innovation. Opportunity?
Melissa Chan (President World Young Leaders in Dementia) and Richard Reilly (ReillyLab, Trinity) introduce the day.
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Richard Reilly is Chair of Neural Engineering and Full Professor, a joint position in the School of Medicine and School of Engineering at Trinity College, The University of Dublin. He is a Principal investigator at the Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering and the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. Professor Reilly is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, the Royal Society of Medicine and the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering & Science. He was awarded the 2013 Samuel Haughton Silver Medal by the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland and has founded two start-up companies based on his research activities. He is a member of Board of the Health Product Regulatory Authority in Ireland and chair of the HPRA’s Advisory Committee on Medical Devices. He is a member of the Board of the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin. He is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine https://www.embs.org/jtehm/.
Professor Reilly’s research focuses on signal processing of electrophysiological, neuroimaging and bioacoustic data for the development of quantitative methods to understand neural function and the underlying pathophysiology of sensory and cognitive processing. His Clinical Neural Engineering lab conducts cross-disciplinary translational research, particularly on movement disorders and ageing. His lab combines neural engineering and neural signal processing to create patient-oriented diagnostic and assessment tools, objective measures for active implantable devices and therapeutic devices. Lab projects and recent publications are described on his lab’s website http://reillylab.net/
Social Media:
Melissa Chan works with tri-sector partners (business, government and non-profit) in the area of health and social care to lead service design innovation and growth projects. Melissa is currently an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). She is also Lead Consultant for CARA by Dementia Singapore, a lifestyle and community digital membership platform and Founder of Project We Forgot, a platform for carers that provides support resources across the dementia care journey. Melissa was previously with ECON Healthcare Group and Homage, an on-demand technology care solution where she led growth service design and partnerships with corporates, government agencies, healthcare institutions, and social service organisations in Singapore and Malaysia. Melissa is President of the World Young Leaders in Dementia (WYLD) Network driving dementia innovation across disciplines and borders.
11.00–12.00pm
Changing Populations, Changing Opportunities
The role of neuroscience in the challenge of changing populations.
Sarah Lock (SVP for Policy and Executive Director of the Global Council on Brain Health at the American Association Retired People)
Pin Chin Kwok (CEO Savonix.com)
Host Melissa Chan
Live streamed presentations and fireside conversation were recorded – see below. As the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Sarah Lenz Lock is Senior Vice President for Policy and Brain Health in AARP’s Policy, Research and International Affairs (PRI). Ms. Lock leads AARP’s policy initiatives on brain health and care for people living with dementia, including serving as the Executive Director of the Global Council on Brain Health, an independent collaborative of scientists, doctors, and policy experts. Ms. Lock coordinates AARP’s role in the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations.
Ms. Lock is a frequent writer and public speaker on issues related to healthy aging. She has been quoted or appeared in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, Good Morning, America, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, the Baltimore Sun, and the Chicago Tribune.
Sarah serves on numerous boards and is a member of the American Society on Aging, the Gerontological Society of America, the Dementia Friendly America National Council, the Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the National Institute on Aging’s IMPACT Collaboratory, and the National Academy of Social Insurance. Sarah represents AARP on the Milken Alliance to Improve Dementia Care and serves as a Health and Aging Policy Fellow Program National Advisory Board Member. She formerly served as a Commissioner for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Law and Aging and on the HHS Administration on Community Living Aging and Cognitive Health Technical Expert Advisory Board.
From 2007 to June 2018 she directed the Office of Policy Development and Integration, where she led the office responsible for the development of AARP’s public policies. Previously, Ms. Lock was Senior Attorney/Manager at AARP Foundation Litigation conducting health care impact litigation on behalf of older persons. She has authored numerous amicus briefs in appellate courts all over the country on health care issues impacting older Americans.
Prior to joining AARP, Sarah served as a Trial Attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. Sarah began her career as a Legislative Assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives to Congressman Michael D. Barnes working with the Federal Government Service Task Force, and worked at the law firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn.
Ms. Lock received a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College, and a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law where she was a member of the law review.
Website: www.aarp.org
www.GlobalCouncilonBrainHealth.org
Social:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-lenz-lock-90a73722/
As CEO at Savonix, Pin leverages more than 20 years of experience in both corporate and start-up leadership roles, including the last decade spent in healthcare in Asia. She is passionate about improving health outcomes, and has a depth of experience in innovation, corporate transformation and start-up scaling. She blends a strong strategic mindset, human-centred design, and commercial execution capabilities. Prior to joining Savonix, she was Innovation Director at LumenLab, MetLife’s Innovation Center where she developed new solutions to improve health outcomes in chronic diseases, and she executed on new business models incorporating digital health solutions at Medtronic. Pin gained deep experience in working with deeply human challenges in social enterprise after an early career in banking at Citigroup in New York. She holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and a BS from New York University.
Website: https://savonix.com
Social: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pin-chin-kwok/
Melissa Chan works with tri-sector partners (business, government and non-profit) in the area of health and social care to lead service design innovation and growth projects. Melissa is currently an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). She is also Lead Consultant for CARA by Dementia Singapore, a lifestyle and community digital membership platform and Founder of Project We Forgot, a platform for carers that provides support resources across the dementia care journey. Melissa was previously with ECON Healthcare Group and Homage, an on-demand technology care solution where she led growth service design and partnerships with corporates, government agencies, healthcare institutions, and social service organisations in Singapore and Malaysia. Melissa is President of the World Young Leaders in Dementia (WYLD) Network driving dementia innovation across disciplines and borders.
12.30–1.00pm
Keynote Presentation - Enhancing Human Creativity with Technology
Domhnaill Hernon,Global Lead Cognitive Human Enterprise at EY.
Award-winning technology, innovation and creativity executive works to connect artists and scientists to develop the business of the metaverse.
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Domhnaill Hernon is an award-winning technology, innovation and creativity executive. Domhnaill received an undergrad in Aeronautical Engineering and a PhD in Aerodynamics from the University of Limerick and an executive MBA from Dublin City University, Ireland. He is the global lead and co-founder of a new imitative at EY to create the Cognitive Human Enterprise. This is a pioneering new approach combining massively multidisciplinary collaboration and full-spectrum diversity to maximize organizational cognitive flexibility. Prior to that he founded a new initiative to fuse art and engineering/science to develop solutions that humanize technology while at Nokia Bell Labs. Domhnaill’s work has been featured in Wired Magazine, Times Square, SXSW, Nasdaq, MWC, Ars Electronica, TEDx, Inspirefest to name just a few and he advises innovation and cultural programs globally.
Website:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/domhnaill-hernon-57b4892/
Social:
1.00-2.00pm
Moving the Body-Brain, Moving the Brain-Body - a danced lecture
Dance artists, activist and scholars, Paul Modjaji and Fearghus Ó Conchúir share a conversation about the legacies of trauma carried in our bodies. Drawing on distinct but related cultural histories, Paul from South Africa and Fearghus from Ireland explore how a process of sharing movement might help us transform embodied trauma.
Due to the nature of the event, it was not recorded.
Contributors
Fearghus Ó Conchúir is a choreographer and dance artist. Frequently collaborating with experts from across and beyond the arts, he makes film and live performances that create frameworks for audiences and artists to build communities together. His multi-platform work, The Casement Project, was one of the Arts Council’s National Projects for Ireland 2016, part of the Ireland 2016 International Programme and of the 14-18NOW WWI Centenary Art Commissions. He’s currently co-leading a dance programme with Micro Rainbow International that he initiated as part of The Casement Project to support LGBT refugees and asylum seekers. From 2018-2020, he was Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales. His work for the Company toured across Wales as well as being presented in Japan as part of Wales’ cultural programme for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. He was appointed to the Arts Council of Ireland in 2018 and became Deputy Chair in 2019. He is Chair of the UK Dance Network.
Website:
Social Media:
https://twitter.com/followfearghus
Paul is a dancer, choreographer, writer and creative director who’s career began in Denmark on a dance scholarship. Since returning home to Africa he has choreographed and produced stage, film, and community projects and founded the non-for profit organization Leaders Who Dare To Dream Foundation. His work as an artist and activist has taken him to many parts of Africa and the world.
Website:
https://breakingdownbordersafrica.com
Social Media:
2.00 - 2.30pm
Competitive Innovation
Enda McNulty (McNulty Performance), Brian Quinn (Secondedge Technology Solutions) and Padraic Moyles (Riverdance) on achieving innovation in business and competitive environments.
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Enda has created a unique approach to leadership, resilience, teams and wellbeing through his learnings in sport, psychology and business.
Enda is a specialist in Performance, Leadership, Mental toughness and Culture. With 25 years of experience in coaching elite performance in areas such as sport, business, politics and performance arts, Enda is the CEO and founder of McNulty, a high-growth training and development organization. Enda played Gaelic Games at the highest level for 12 years, competing as part of highly successful sports teams. During this time, Enda testifies that he learned a huge amount about leading, team & culture, how to win and how to learn from losing.
Enda has coached and mentored many elite athletes over a 20-year career. He has worked as part of the back-room performance team to hugely successful teams and athletes, including Joe Schmidt’s Leinster and Ireland teams. On top of extensive experience in elite sport, Enda has more than 15 years of experience coaching, mentoring and facilitating enhanced performance in the business world. In working with high-level executives in some of the leading companies around the world, such as Microsoft, Facebook, Intel and Amazon, Enda has gained invaluable experience with a diverse range of industries, cultures and leaders.
Enda specialises in coaching and mentoring in the areas of Leadership, Mindset, High Performance Teams, Creative Performance Environments, Resilience and Wellbeing, and is the author of best-selling book “Commit!”. He is also a board member of the John & Pat Hume foundation, supporting and inspiring leadership for peaceful change.
Website:
https://mcnultyperformance.com
Social Media:
Part of the world-renowned Riverdance for almost 18 years, Padraic has danced more than 5,000 shows and toured extensively around the world. He has performed at the most famous venues across the globe and danced in front of millions of people, including many world leaders in business, sport, and politics.
Padraic’s mindset, energy, enthusiasm and leadership is world class. He is an expert in Peak Performance, Energy Management and High Performance teams and has run hundreds of workshops for top international teams and organisations as part of the McNulty team.
His current role as Associate Director of Riverdance and Heartbeat of Home involves identifying, acquiring and developing the highest talent in Irish Dance. Padraic has also been part of the McNulty team for the last ten years as Head of Performance, inspiring teams to unlock their full potential.
Website:
https://academy.riverdance.com
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/padraic-moyles-54445a48/
https://twitter.com/padraicmoyles
As managing director of SecondEdge Technology Solutions Brian Quinn operates in a trust centric, innovative and collaborative manner with an ability to enable diverse stakeholders to achieve shared results that incorporate values and commercial ambition.
He is highly networked within the European technology ecosystem through government agencies, academia and enterprises. Brian has acted as a policy advisor to the European Commission, and has served as an expert reviewer, evaluator and advisor to the European Commission and Irish National Government (& agencies).
Brian lead Intel Labs function in Europe and he has a track record in delivering various technology research to product company strategies, directly leading diverse organizations with Multi-Million-Euro-Budgets through dispersed global locations.
Website:
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianocuinn
2.30 - 4.30pm
The Library of People
Book a one-to-one conversation with experts by education and/or experience.
Curated by Michael Foley (Trinity PPI Ignite Office)
Due to the sensitive nature of these events they were not recorded.
Contributors
Michael Foley is the Programme Manager for Trinity’s PPI Ignite Office, promoting public and patient involvement in health-related research. The PPI Ignite Office is based in the Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability (TCAID).
Prior to this role, he has worked as a Research & Development Officer in TCAID and a Research Module Coordinator on the Masters in Mediation and Conflict Intervention in the Edward M Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention in Maynooth University.
He has worked as a Senior Manager for the NGO Age & Opportunity and has run the National Disability Authority’s Research Library. He also has many years of experience in freelance copywriting, editing, research and facilitation work.
With an MSc in Applied Social Research, Michael has a particular interest in research translation and impact, with a particular focus on how public policy, the NGO sector and the research sector interact.
Website: https://www.tcd.ie/tcaid/ignite/index.php
Social Media: https://twitter.com/Michael_TCAID
3.00 - 4.00pm
Emerging Innovation
Presentations from fully developed in-market and emerging projects.
Candace La Fleur (MD CR Robotics), Neill O’Dwyer and Gareth Young, (Department of Computer Science, Trinity), Dominic Gately (artist) and Claire Gillan (Neureka.ie) with rapid presentations from EIT Health/Tangent.
Chaired by Lucy Campbell (EIT Health).
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Website: https://www.heymylo.ie
Social: https://twitter.com/heymylo
Néill O’Dwyer is a Research Fellow and the Principal Investigator ‘Performative Investigations into Extended and Augmented Reality Technologies’ (PIX-ART), in the School of Creative Arts (SCA) at Trinity College Dublin. He previously worked in V-SENSE project in Trinity’s Department of Computer Science, where he continues to be an associate researcher. He teaches Performance and Technology in the SCA. He is an awardee of the prestigious Irish Research Council (IRC) Government of Ireland Research Fellowship (2017 – 2019). He is the sole author of Digital Scenography: 30 years of experimentation and innovation in performance and interactive media (forthcoming in 2021) and a co-editor of The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: Through the Virtual, Towards the Real (2015) and Aesthetics, Digital Studies and Bernard Stiegler (2021). He worked with Bernard Stiegler at the Institute of Research and Innovation (IRI), at the Pompidou Centre, Paris. Néill specialises in practice-based research in the field of scenography and design-led performance with a specific focus on digital media, computer vision, human–computer interaction, prosthesis, synergy, agency, performativity and the impact of technology on artistic processes.
Website:
Social Media:
As a postdoctoral research fellow on the V-SENSE project, Gareth’s research focuses on evaluating creative uses of extended-reality (XR) technology by applying quantitative and qualitative human-computer interaction (HCI) evaluation techniques. This approach includes studying the design and use of XR technology in creative practices, focusing on the interface between users and the XR platform. His role is to observe and record how users interact with XR and design new methods to interact with XR in innovative and novel ways. Topics of exploration focus on using XR and volumetric video (VV) in cultural heritage, such as film, theatre, and performance practice, from the perspectives of both practitioners and the audience. The role of immersive content creation in mediated perspective-taking experiences of creative storytelling content is also investigated, including the use of XR as an ’empathy making machine’ by facilitating perspective-taking and allowing users to experience another person’s circumstances. Other duties include investigating the role of XR in the delivery of educational content in the context of higher education, research, and artistic practice and the influences of immersion and presence on students’ overall experiences.
Website:
Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/garethyoung.org/
Claire’s lab at Trinity College Dublin is interested in developing novel approaches to studying brain health in psychiatric and ageing populations – a key goal is to develop objective tests that can be used to diagnose individuals and predict who will respond to which treatment. Her lab aims to define new and more biologically-valid transdiagnostic dimensional psychiatric traits that will aid in our understanding of the neurobiology of mental illness. In combination with this approach, she follows patients longitudinally through treatment and/or transitions into disease-states, aiming to develop predictive tools that can inform treatment decisions and the allocation of preventative interventions. For much of this work, increasingly large samples are required and as such, the lab are actively experimenting with novel and more efficient methods for large-scale data-collection – these include “gamified” cognitive testing via smartphone apps (www.neureka.ie) and using Twitter as an alternative to ecological momentary assessment.
Claire’s treatment prediction research is supported by a fellowship from MQ, an enterprise partnership studentship from Irish Research Council and Silvercloud Health. Claire’s longitudinal, smartphone-based research (www.neureka.ie) in dementia and mental health is supported by funding from the Global Brain Health Institute, and two recent awards from Science Foundation Ireland: the Frontiers for the Future and Discover awards. She was awarded an ERC starting grant for €1.5M in 2020 and this program will address gaps in our current understanding of how we make and break habits.
She serves as a reviewing editor at eLife and on the editorial board for Brain and Neurosciences Advances. She recently joined the Wellcome Trust’s Independent Advisory Bank for their new Mental Health Priority Area.
Websites:
Social:
X: @neurekaApp
Dominic creates work driven by shared human experience, rooted in a tradition of ensemble co-creation, collaborative by default. His performance work embraces mainstream commercial and subsidised theatre, devised site-specific and fringe theatre, television and radio. Dominic was part of the team that developed the world’s first dementia-friendly theatre performance, and was an originating cast member of the theatre adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy, which launched the UK’s Theatre of Sanctuary movement.
His writing explores brain health and experiences of reality, recently co-authoring a play with a man who lives with dementia to highlight his creativity, humour and resilience at a time of life-changing uncertainty. Dominic is currently embarking on a long-term project to create impactful, research-informed performance works at the point where science and art converge. Works that could, in turn, feed into or inspire further research. He believes in science made accessible not through a process of oversimplification, but through rich, creative interpretation.
His new project is The Noise Begins, an audio piece exploring the neuroscience and lived experience of tinnitus.
Website:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-gately
EIT Health is a network of best-in-class health innovators approximately 150 partners and is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union. We collaborate across borders to deliver new solutions that can enable European citizens to live longer, healthier lives.
Lucy Campbell, Entrepreneurship and Marketing Lead, EIT Health is a communications, marketing and business transformation leader with significant experience in media and academic institutions. She has focused on working within organisations on growth strategy and commercialisation and bringing new products and services to market. In her role with EIT Health Lucy is connecting health start ups and innovators to the wider European Health innovation network to accelerate their business through access to education and training, stakeholders and investors.
Website: https://eithealth.eu
As a European leader in student entrepreneurship, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin has established Tangent, Trinity’s Ideas Workspace. This new space, housed in a world-class facility, co-located within an expanded School of Business, offers students, staff, and the wider innovation ecosystem a place to come together to collaborate, build and innovate.Trinity is committed to providing a transformative learning environment that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship at all levels across the university. We challenge our students and our partners to challenge themselves. Trinity is at the forefront of promoting entrepreneurship as an engine for economic growth and for social and cultural development.
Website: https://www.tcd.ie/tangent/
Social Media: https://twitter.com/tcdtangent
3.00 - 4.00pm
BrainFM
BrainFM is an educational tool that uses dance to learn about the brain. It utilises a novel approach alternating multisensory didactic learning with embodied co-creative experience to support understanding of neuroscience. As a result, BrainFM serves as a vehicle to stimulate community engagement while simultaneously reinforcing the concept into action.
As part of Brain Awareness Week, we offered four BrainFM events (two on-line and two in-person) to spread awareness about the modifiable risk factors for dementia, specifically physical activity, social connection, and hearing, in a diverse intergenerational population in Ireland and around the world. The main theme was conveyed through an exploration of how these three modifiable risk factors can impact activity and connectivity in the brain culminating as a creative story through dance. In so doing, we simultaneously reinforced the science while building community engagement in a fun and interactive way. The programme was therefore not only key to empowering individuals to be active and informed agents in their own brain health but is also an advocate for the alliance between arts and science as a powerful tool for expanding brain health literacy.
Sessions were as follows:
Sat 12th March – 4.00-5.00 pm (In-person) at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin – for professionals in culture sector, health care and researchers
Sun 13th March – 3.00-4.00pm (Online) 13 March event: 3.00-4.00pm (Online) for people living with dementia and carers – by invitation only. If you are a care partner or if you serve communities of people living with dementia and would like your community to be invited to the event, please email us on BrainFM.TuneIn (at) gmail.com
Mon 14th March – 10.00-11.00am 14 March event: 10.00-11.00am (Online) for primary schools by invitation only – teachers were requested to register for this event as 1 ticket per class or class group. If you are a primary school teacher and would like your class to be invited for this BrainFM event, please email us on BrainFM.TuneIn (at) gmail.com
Wed 16th March – 6.00- 7.00pm (In-person) at Unit 18 – open to the community
Due to the nature of the events we did not record these sessions.
Contributors
Dr. Anusha Yasoda-Mohan is a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and a Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. She is also a trained classical Bharathanatyam and Bollywood dancer. In addition to studying phantom auditory perception using experimental psychology, neuromodulation and neuroimaging, Anusha is immensely passionate about the performing arts which enables her to resonate and collaborate with both artists and scientists. Her diverse and multicultural experience through her national and international travels as both a performing artiste and researcher shapes her persona and inspires her ongoing work of marrying the two seemingly different worlds. She is Director of the International Tinnitus Research Initiative Foundation’s dissertation and communication wing (TRI Academy), which strives to take tinnitus research and clinical practices to the wider tinnitus research community. She is also the co-developer of BrainFM – an education and awareness tool aimed at making complex concepts about the brain accessible through dance while also building community. Additionally, Anusha leads a community for people living with tinnitus in Ireland called Tinnitus Eire (www.tinnituseire.ie) through which she strives to bring a sense of community and belonging for tinnitus sufferers. These tie together with her vision to leverage the arts as a medium to both comprehend and communicate the working of the brain.
Google Scholar:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=GxPjtv4AAAAJ&hl=en
Social:
Instagram: @nushmo90
Facebook: @Anusha.mohan.39
LinkedIn: @AnushaYasoda-Mohan
Magda Kaczmarska, MFA (she/her, they/them) is a dance artist and creative aging thought leader who uses co-creative community dance as a vehicle for belonging and wellbeing. Magda leverages a dual background in neuropharmacology research and dance to build bridges and empower individuals and communities to be active agents in their creativity and brain health. As an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Magda works collaboratively with interdisciplinary leaders around the globe to advance access to creative aging programs that support brain health, belonging and artistic expression across the lifespan. She founded DanceStream Projects, a creative collective based in New York City, that cultivates transdisciplinary partnerships to provide direct ally-ship and empowerment to communities by bridging arts and health and centering dance as a catalyst for systems change. Along with Dr. Anusha Yasoda-Mohan, she leads BrainFM, a co-creative educational tool that unites dance and storytelling to learn about the brain.
Magda mentors future leaders in the creative and health sector through regular partnership at the Fordham Ailey School of Dance in New York City and the Arts in Medicine Fellowship in Lagos, Nigeria. She serves as a representative to the UN with Generations United and is on the executive committee of the UN NGO Committee on Ageing.
Websites:
https://dancestreamprojects.org/
Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/magdakacz2013/
https://twitter.com/MagdaKaczmarsk4
4.30 - 5.30pm
Future Business of Ageing
Strategy Consultant Gretchen Addi (IDEO, Aging2.0), Mandy Salomon (CEO Mentia.me) and Bianca Stern (ED Health Innovations, Centre for Aging +Brain Health Innovation, Canada’) discuss trends emerging in ageing and tech.
Chaired by David Pollard (Tangent/EIT Health) and Melissa Chan.
Please see below for video of the session. Please note, as the session was recorded live the audio quality is uneven.
Contributors
Gretchen Addi is passionate about the power of empathy and design and the people who get past the talk and make things happen. She speaks and writes about design, the longevity economy, and the needs of the aging population. She brings a strong strategic point of view to all of her work, both from a brand and service perspective.
She is currently consulting with start-ups, foundations, and commercial ventures in health, wellness, and aging. She was previously an Associate Partner and business lead for IDEO in the Bay Area for 17 years, including 7 years as the location lead for San Francisco. She also led IDEO’s efforts to build a domain of work in the Aging space as well as providing mentorship and guidance to the Design Research discipline.
She serves on the executive board for the SF Village and At Home with Growing Older (AHWGO) as well as on the advisory boards for the Center for Aging + Brain Health Innovation in Toronto, Canada and Aging into the Future in LA, CA.
Prior to IDEO, she worked for 25 years in various large and small design and architecture firms in the US, France, and the Middle East on a wide range of retail, commercial, transportation, and healthcare projects.
Mandy is an entrepreneur working at the intersection of creative media, human-computer interaction, and cultural gerontology. She is the co-founder and CEO of Mentia, whose mission is to enable people with cognitive disabilities to have a meaningful digital life. Mentia’s signature product, DevaWorld, is an interactive virtual world that amplifies the sense of self for people living with dementia.
Before this, Mandy received her Ph.D. at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne (Australia) for her work on inclusive design for people with dementia and developing digital systems that enable them to participate and have agency despite their disabilities. While there, she conducted studies that showed the acceptance of 3D virtual worlds for people living with dementia and the psycho-social advantages of using them. As a senior researcher at Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), she was an early advocate for using immersive technologies and video games in the health and education sectors. Stirling University’s Dementia Services Centre (UK) selected Mandy’s research for the ‘Ideas today that will impact tomorrow’ award, describing her work as ‘digital empathy.’ Mandy also holds an MA (Media and Communication) and a BA in Drama and Visual Arts, and she brings a large body of work from theatre and media production to her practice.
Currently, Mandy is the principal investigator of an NIH-NIA-funded clinical trial looking at DevaWorld as a safe rehearsal place for stressful or challenging activities of daily living.
Website: https://www.mentia.me
Bianca’s career spans over 40 years in health care within private and public sectors; including community, post-acute and long-term care. She has also been involved at university and college levels in curriculum design, research, teaching and student mentorship. Bianca has built on her bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy from McGill University and master’s degree in Rehabilitation Science from the University of Toronto, creatively intersecting the art and science of healthcare with innovation, technology, and industry.
In the last 27 years at Baycrest Health Sciences, Bianca has acted in leadership roles including the Director and Professional Practice Chief for the Occupational Therapy Department, Co-Director of the Brain Health Center, Executive Director of the Culture, Arts & Innovation Department and Executive Director, Health Innovations, Center for Aging & Brain Health Innovation (CABHI).
Bianca is a thought leader in the area of innovation, blending an occupational therapy lens, design thinking and arts-based tools with an inclusive, participatory user focus; capitalizing on emerging technologies and theoretical knowledge to stimulate innovative solutions for the journey of aging. Bianca currently oversees the Innovation Office, Knowledge Mobilization team and Leap virtual end user community. She is also actively involved in helping to foster a culture of innovation and knowledge mobilization at Baycrest and across the CABHI network partner sites.
Website:
Social:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/10515933/
https://www.facebook.com/CABHIINFO/
Melissa Chan works with tri-sector partners (business, government and non-profit) in the area of health and social care to lead service design innovation and growth projects. Melissa is currently an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). She is also Lead Consultant for CARA by Dementia Singapore, a lifestyle and community digital membership platform and Founder of Project We Forgot, a platform for carers that provides support resources across the dementia care journey. Melissa was previously with ECON Healthcare Group and Homage, an on-demand technology care solution where she led growth service design and partnerships with corporates, government agencies, healthcare institutions, and social service organisations in Singapore and Malaysia. Melissa is President of the World Young Leaders in Dementia (WYLD) Network driving dementia innovation across disciplines and borders.
David Pollard, is the Education Lead at EIT Health and a Ph.D. Candidate in Inclusive Design and Creative Technology Innovation at SMARTlab in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, UCD. As a former startup founder with a Masters in Learning and Teaching, David has lectured in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking, and Technology Enhanced Learning at Tangent, UCD, and NCI.
David’s innovation projects with the disabled community and as co-founder of TeamOSV – a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic – have been featured in Forbes, Fortune Magazine, and New York Times and nominated for an Irish Red Cross Humanitarian Award.
In his EIT Health role, David supports innovative startups, industry, hospitals, and universities as well as students, patients, and citizens. David is the lead for the building and development of EIT Health’s new European-wide learning platform, the EIT Health Academy.
Website:
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpollardirl
https://twitter.com/davidpollardirl
https://twitter.com/EITHealth_IRLUK
https://www.instagram.com/davidpollardirl
TikTok: @davidpollardirl
As a European leader in student entrepreneurship, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin has established Tangent, Trinity’s Ideas Workspace. This new space, housed in a world-class facility, co-located within an expanded School of Business, offers students, staff, and the wider innovation ecosystem a place to come together to collaborate, build and innovate.Trinity is committed to providing a transformative learning environment that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship at all levels across the university. We challenge our students and our partners to challenge themselves. Trinity is at the forefront of promoting entrepreneurship as an engine for economic growth and for social and cultural development.
Website: https://www.tcd.ie/tangent/
Social Media: https://twitter.com/tcdtangent
