Conference
Listening to colours

Neil Harbisson, visual artist and president of the Cyborg Foundation. In 2004, he became the first person recognized by a government as a cyborg. Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, a condition that only allows him to see the world in black and white. Since he was 20 years, he installed an electronic eye ("eyeborg") into his head that allows him to listen to colours. In 2010, he founded the Cyborg Foundation, an international organization that seeks to extend the humans abilities by creating cybernetic body extensions, and to defend the rights of cyborgs.

Conference
Science and money, putting together projects in biotech

Since the early days of genetic engineering, biotech has delivered many new drugs, open new venues in science, and changed our lives altogether. At the same time it remains a field where expectations are often not translated into results, due to the high barrier of entry and the need of large amounts of capital. Successful projects need to balance science with unmet medical needs, and get enough resources to move them forward. Joaquim will share with you his experience on how to build and bring drug discovery and development projects to success.

Speaker: Joaquim Trias, PhD in Biology from the University of Barcelona, has participated in the creation of five start-ups in the biotech sector at Silicon Valley and Boston. The goal of these companies was the discovery and development of new medications, some of which are already on the market and others in advanced stages of clinical development. Microcide Pharmaceuticals, Anthera Pharmaceuticals and versicolor/Vicuron went on NASDAQ, the latter subsequently acquired by Pfizer, Peninsula Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Johnson and Johnson, and Tetraphase remains private. He continues to participate in the world of start-ups through JTPS consulting.

Conference
Bioblender: Open Source technology used to simulate biochemical reactions

In 2008 the Scientific Visualization Unit of the Institute of Clinical Physiology (Italy) started using the Blender Physics Engine to simulate interaction between complex molecules. Their modified version of Blender, Bioblender, is now available to everybody.

Speaker: Frederik Steinmetz will give a brief overview on how to import molecular information from the Protein Database (PDB) into Bioblender and visualize lipophilic and hydrophilic potentials of the different regions of the proteins. Frederik is a true cosmopolitan who has lived in five countries to date. His interest in animals of all kinds led him into the Philippine rainforest, where he did research for his graduation in Biology for four months. He's now living in Berlin, getting ready to teach at the Campus Party Europe. In 2008 he started working with Blender and by now he has a small zoo of animatable Blender animals. Since 2010 he has been doing tutorials for CG Tuts+. In 2011 he joined BlenderDiplom.com and is now for hire both as personal trainer and for workshops. His focus is modelling and texturing but he has experiences in almost all fields that are covered by the Swiss army knife that is Blender.

Conference
mHealth: Innovating from Benchtop to Bedside

The use of mobile technologies in the healthcare space (mHealth) has pioneered innovative point-of-care diagnostic solutions to address global health needs. Wilson To's talk will explore creative innovations that position the smartphone has the primary driver for global impact and change.

Speaker: Wilson To is a recent doctoral graduate in Comparative Pathology from University of California, Davis where his primary research involved the determination of novel biomarkers for early detection of vascular diseases. He has a deep understanding of technology, and has been heavily involved in the development of different award-winning healthcare technologies that explore the use of mobile technologies in diagnostic medicine. As a result of his dedication to science and research, he is the recipient of the prestigious Gates Foundation Fellowship, Edmondson Pathology Research Fellowship, and Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant Award. He will be continuing his work in the healthcare space at Caradigm – a Microsoft and GE Healthcare joint venture.

Conference
Anna Maria von Saucken: MoMedica: Mobile Strategies for Healthcare

During her days as a researcher, Anna-Maria von Saucken spent a substantial amount of time observing operations at hospitals across Germany and discovered an urgent need for applications for hospitals, doctors, surgeries and health focussed businesses. Now she works for Momedica, a startup that develops mobile applications for the health sector. The first product focuses on the improvement of patients’ health education, optimizing the hospital workflow and freeing up medical personnel. Ms von Saucken will talk on detecting human errors with medical devices in operating rooms (OR) and usability measurement of safety-critical systems.

Speaker: Anna-Maria von Saucken has an engineering background in Information Technology and puts her academic knowledge (PHD candidate at Technische Universität Berlin, Medical Engineering) into usable IT products in the field of medical education. Anna taught SOA and Distributed Systems in Berlin and spent many years working in computerlinguistics. This has given her a deep understanding of both sides – the technical interface from a data perspective as well as a context-supporting user interface placed on top.