Program and Speakers

Digital Health Week 2022 | 15th-17th February, 2022

In 2022, we will again be bringing you a joint event between the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne!

Digital Health Week (15-17 February 2022) is an opportunity for anyone interested in digital health to participate in a program of virtual events and share research and ideas. It is designed to be both informative, provocative, and a showcase of the innovative work being undertaken in digital health across the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, and beyond. Digital Health Week 2022 will bring together researchers, health services, industry, and the community to build person-centred eHealth collaborations.

“Reality check: how do we make technology work in real life?”

This year’s theme will have a focus on discussing how we can make technology truly work as a support tool for people in life and across health care systems. We want to explore the mismatch between real life and the potential of technology to support health and wellbeing. Our vision is to have diverse speakers who challenge us and spark discussions that might help us all to harness technology in different ways for more inclusive healthcare and support.

#DigitalHealthWeek2022 Program:

Download the #DigitalHealthWeek22 program Download

Meet our Panel Speakers

Tuesday 15th February | Panel discussion “The truth about technology and our health: a community panel”

How can technology increase individual capacity and social connectedness? Learn how these community leaders harness a variety of digital health technologies to enhance their health and wellbeing, and for the community around them. What works? What doesn’t? And what can we improve?

Meet the panel

Luke Briscoe Luke Briscoe is a proud Kuku-Yalanji man from Far North Queensland. Luke has experience in the creative industries, digital communication, project management, community, international policy, and cultural development. Luke founded the award-winning company INDIGI LAB to create innovative projects and STEM initiatives for social and environmental change. The INDIGI LAB framework and principles into researching and project planning is guided by the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and The Seventh Generation Principle. We believe that these frameworks support real sustainable approaches to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advancement in sciences and technology.
Carly Findlay Carly Findlay OAM is an award-winning writer, speaker and appearance activist. Her first book, a memoir called Say Hello, was released in January 2019. Carly edited the anthology Growing Up Disabled in Australia with Black Inc Books. It’s in stores now. She writes on disability and appearance diversity issues for news outlets including the ABC, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and SBS. In 2020, Carly Findlay received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her work as a disability advocate and activist. She was named one of Australia’s most influential women in the 2014 Australian Financial Review and Westpac 100 Women of Influence Awards. She has appeared on ABC TV’s You Can’t Ask That and Cyberhate with Tara Moss, and has been a regular on various ABC radio programs. She has spoken at the Melbourne Writers Festival, the University of Western England and Melbourne University – to name a few. She organised the history-making Access to Fashion – a Melbourne Fashion Week event featuring disabled models. She has a Masters of Communication and Bachelor of eCommerce. Carly identifies as a proud disabled woman – she lives with a rare, severe skin condition, ichthyosis. She organised Australia’s first Ichthyosis meet in 2015 – bringing together 75 people affected by the rare, severe skin condition Ichthyosis. 25 attendees had Ichthyosis. Friendships and support networks were formed. Stay up to date with Carly on Twitter.
Fiona Given Fiona has an Arts/Law degree from Macquarie University. She has been a General Member of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal since its inception. Previously, Fiona was a community member of the NSW Guardianship Tribunal. She sits on the boards of Assistive Technology Australia and Side by Side Advocacy. Fiona lives with cerebral palsy including communication disability. She is a Research Assistant with the University of Technology Sydney.
Caleb Rixon Caleb is a young stroke survivor, working to increase individual capacity and mobilize trauma survivor communities through his social enterprise genyus network. As a consultant, coach and speaker, Cal works with Deakin, La Trobe & Monash Universities, Heads Together for ABI, Stroke Association of Victoria, Stroke Foundation, Summer Foundation, Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health and R.A.I.L. He has presented keynotes for Accessible Inclusive Geelong, National Disability Insurance Agency, Occupational Therapy Australia, and L’Oréal Australia. His story has been featured on Huffington Post, ABC Radio National, Impact Boom, House of Wellness for Channel 7 ("Stoke Of Genius"), SBS Insight ("Cheating Death") and most recently with the ABC ("Disability, Dating and Disclosure").
Panel Moderator, Professor Simon Darcy Simon Darcy is a Professor at the UTS Business School, who specialises in developing inclusive organisational approaches for diversity groups and understanding the social impact of individuals and organisations. As a person with an acquired high level spinal cord injury and power wheelchair user he brings an insider's understanding to his research, engagement and advocacy.

Wednesday 16th February | Panel discussion “Unlocking the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare”

Panellists will explore the AI landscape in healthcare and compare it to other industries that have been early adopters of AI. The discussion will focus on the question ‘Is the health sector ready for AI?’ a deep dive will follow this into the barriers to implementing AI in healthcare, whether human, technological, or systemic.

Meet the panel

Dr Denis Bauer Dr Denis Bauer is a government research scientist, adjunct professor at Macquarie University and an AWS Hero. She is passionate about translating research into impactful products. Her science has led to the discovery of novel disease genes for Motor Neuron Disease and has informed the COVID-19 vaccine development. Her open-source bioinformatics software products have commercial impact through advanced cloud-architecture and deployment. She keynotes international IT, LifeScience and Medical conferences and has attracted more than $35M in funding to further life-science research and digital health. Denis holds a Bachelor in Bioinformatics from Germany, a PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of Queensland and a Certificate in Executive Management and Development from the University of New South Wales Business School.
Professor Wendy Chapman Wendy Chapman leads the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health. She has a bachelor's degree in Linguistics and PhD in Medical Informatics from the University of Utah. Her research has focused on natural language processing of clinical notes. She is passionate about bridging the gap between AI innovation and the complex sociotechnical infrastructures where they will be used.
Professor Enrico Coiera Professor Enrico Coiera is Director of the Centre for Health Informatics at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation and Foundation Professor in Medical Informatics, Macquarie University Trained in medicine and with a computer science PhD in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Professor Coiera has a research background in both industry and academia and a strong international research reputation for his work on decision support and communication processes in biomedicine. Professor Coiera leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Digital Health and is a Lead Investigator on the NHMRC Partnership Centre in Health System Sustainability and the founder and leads the Australian Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAAiH). Enrico was appointed as an Australian expert to the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) in 2020.
Michelle Gallaher Michelle Gallaher is an award-winning health technology entrepreneur, speaker and advocate. As CEO of Opyl Ltd (ASX:OPL), a company working at the intersection of social media, clinical trials, and artificial intelligence, Michelle is leading a team seeking to improve the efficiency of clinical trials. The first of two AI-enabled platforms, www.opin.ai launched in May. A patient-led approach, Opin leverages social media to invite patients to self-select an interest and match to any registered trial, anywhere in the world. The second Opyl platform uses predictive analytics and AI to model, inform and improve trial design. Commencing in allied health, Michelle’s 25+ year career spans startups, biotech and pharma marketing roles, national medical research initiatives and leading a biotech peak-body. Michelle is a non-executive director with Praxis Australia, Cancer Trials Australia and Medtech Actuator and co-founder of Women in STEMM Australia. Michelle is a Victorian Honour Roll for Women inductee, Victorian Telstra Business Woman and Entrepreneur of the Year, TedX alumnus and a winner of Westpac’s 200 Businesses of Tomorrow. A Fellow of the Australian Institute for Management and Graduate of the Institute for Company Directors, Michelle has an undergraduate degree in applied science, postgraduate qualifications in business and marketing.
Ben Hachey Ben Hachey is an expert in product-driven artificial intelligence, interactive machine learning and natural language processing. He has been working in data science for over 20 years, building and leading teams that develop machine-in-the-loop tools to amplify human intelligence. In 2019, Ben took the role of Head of Applied AI at Harrison.ai. Harrison.ai is a healthcare startup that aims to bridge clinical medicine and computer science. In 2021, the company raised AUD129 million in a Series B to ramp up its global venture ambitions in medical diagnostics. Previously Ben was the Head of Data Science Innovation at the Digital Health CRC. He led product thinking and program development in consumer-focussed behaviour change and intelligent decision support for clinicians.
Richard Jefferson Richard is a molecular biologist, social entrepreneur and open innovation systems strategist, the founder & CEO of Cambia and Lens.org. He conducted the world’s first biotech crop field trial, work has been cited in the scholarly literature over 20,000 times and his patented inventions in biotechnology have been widely licensed in agriculture and life sciences enterprises globally. Richard founded Cambia in 1991, as a non-profit social enterprise to democratize science-enabled innovation. Cambia’s focus is on the open global platform that it founded in 2000, ‘The Lens’, now the world’s largest and most comprehensive open innovation knowledge resource. Richard is an ‘Outstanding Social Entrepreneur’ of the Schwab Foundation and a regular panelist at the World Economic Forum’s Davos annual meetings and Summits. He served regularly on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Intellectual Property and on the Economics of Innovation. He is the recipient of the American Society of Plant Science’ ‘Leadership in Science’ award, was named to Scientific American’s list of the world’s 50 Most Influential Technologists, and is the inaugural Medalist of the Center for Science & Policy Outcomes. His work has been featured in media in dozens of countries, and includes profiles in The Economist, New York Times, Newsweek, Red Herring, Nature, Science, Nature Biotechnology etc.
Panel Chair, Associate Professor Adam Dunn Associate Professor Adam Dunn is Head of Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health, School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney. He has over a decade of experience in health informatics and data science with a focus on applied machine learning in public health and clinical epidemiology. His research programs aim to improve the use of clinical trial evidence in systematic reviews and clinical practice; and health behaviours by monitoring how evidence and misinformation are taken up by the public.

Thursday 17th February | Panel discussion “Where is my flying skateboard??!! Closing the digital health implementation gap”

For years we have been hearing that health will be digitally transformed but we still see fax machines, paper, and missed opportunities. During this panel we will discuss the challenges around the implementation of digital health innovations and explore the path forward.

Meet the panel

Associate Professor Clair Sullivan Associate Professor Clair Sullivan leads the Queensland Digital Health Research Network at the Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland (UQ). Clair graduated with Honours in Medicine from UQ and a Research Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Leeds. She is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian College of Health Informatics and the Australasian Institute of Digital Health. Recently, she was appointed Associate Professor of Medicine in Clinical Informatics at UQ and is Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology. She is widely published in clinical informatics and serves on several national advisory boards for digital health, including the Australian Digital Health Agency Clinical and Technical Advisory Committee, the AMA Digital Health Committee and chairing the RACP Digital Health Working group and the National mHealth Strategy Steering Committee.
Professor Chris Bain Professor Chris Bain’s initial training was in clinical medicine and he spent 12 years in that field, in a range of roles from primary through to quaternary settings. He then went on to complete training as an IT professional, commencing in 1999 and that training was further augmented by his completion of a PhD in Information Systems in 2014. He is uniquely qualified amongst doctors in Australia. He has spent the last 20 years in senior health and digital health roles, and in late 2017 he commenced in his current role as the inaugural Professor of Digital Health at Monash University in Victoria, with responsibility for leading its large program of work in Digital Health. His personal career interests reside in the areas of the use of technology and data for health delivery improvement in all healthcare settings, with particular interests in digital health, in the usability of technology, and in the outcomes of technology use. Chris is regularly called upon to participate in numerous national and international committees and events as a digital health expert.
Panel Chair, Dr Daniel Capurro Dr Daniel Capurro is a MD, general physician, and PhD in Biomedical Informatics. He is an academic in the School of Computing and Information Systems and Deputy Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health, both at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Capurro has over 10 years of experience in advanced clinical data analytics. His work includes implementation of electronic medical records, clinical informatics, digital phenotyping, and clinical data mining. He founded the Chilean National Centre for Health Information Systems and was Chief Medical Information Officer where he implemented a network-wide Electronic Health Record and other health information systems. He currently leads a team of researchers in the area of digital phenotyping, clinical data analysis, and process mining. Dr. Capurro obtained his MD and Internal Medicine specialty from P. Universidad Catolica de Chile, his PhD from the University of Washington, USA and is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health and Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association. Dr. Capurro believes building collaboration networks sits at the core of health informatics research and practice. Having the chance to help organise Digital Health Week is an opportunity to contribute to these networks in Australia and beyond. Daniel can be found on Twitter.