The future of health. Where are we headed? TEDxMaastricht 2012 will be held in the spirit of the current innovation and incredible change within the medical sector. With the growth of and ‘need’ for sharing information (for example by means of the internet) the gap between the mainstream individual and the professional is closing. This brings new perspectives and challenges for the healthcare professional of the future.

TEDxMaastricht 2012 will be centered around five tracks, covering the fields of health and care, cure, prevention, research and lifestyle:

• Medicine around the World
• Health is a data problem
• E-health is Empowered-Health
• To talk or not to… listen
• The gamification of health

The program of the day will take place from 9.00 AM till 5.00 PM.
The following speakers are confirmed for TEDxMaastricht 2012.

Peter Nicks

Peter Nicks is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and social entrepreneur who has spent the last 12 years telling stories, breaking conventions and engaging communities with new ideas. He has produced documentaries for network, cable and public television and directed media strategy for two social networking start-ups. He worked as a staff producer for ABC News in New York and as a producer for the innovative PBS documentary series Life 360. Nicks is currently working on the transmedia project The Waiting Room, which explores the impact of America’s healthcare policy on one county hospital and the population of largely uninsured patients it serves. Peter Nicks earned his Masters in documentary filmmaking from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999.

Clarissa Silva

Sometimes good things can come from seemingly desperate situations. Clarissa Silva speaks from experience. After being committed in a mental institution, losing her job, house, social contacts and lust for life, she decided to live in a shielded environment at Pameijer. Their vision of Empowerment changed her life for good. And for the better. She learned how to give substance to life by drawing strength from within herself. Now she inspires caretakers to lead empowered lives themselves. Which has huge benefits for patients. Why? Come find out.

Marco van Beers

Can technology facilitate the sharing of our emotions, thoughts and health to others? Marco believes this form of ‘intimate communication’ is possible by combining emerging technologies and design. In his vision technology is a medium, not a goal. This makes his designs poetic, symbolic and touching. Marco is currently graduating for his Masters Degree at the Faculty of Industrial Design at the University of Technology in Eindhoven. He is working on how severely ill people can engage better with their social environment through technology and design.

Anke Tijtsma

Is an improvement in Dutch healthcare good for the entire world? Right now developing countries are adversely affected by our need to solve our own problems. For instance by unethically testing drugs or by recruiting health workers from low-income countries.  Anke Tijtsma, medical antropologist and director of Wemos, wants this to change. A fair, sustainable Dutch health sector that contributes to health unlimited for all. Action here, impact there. How? Come listen to her talk!

Yori Swart

Sometimes you come across something at a TEDx conference that really moves you. A touching story. Stunning pictures. Enchanting music. Yori is sure to provide the last. In 2011 she won the singer songwriter contest of ‘De Grote Prijs van Nederland’ with her beautiful music inspired by artists like Ani DiFranco, Fink, Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Fiona Apple and Wallis Bird. A woman, a guitar and a voice. That’s all it takes for Yori to perform and move you in a way words will not be able to.

Jelle Barentsz

Imagine having to remove cancer without exactly knowing what and where it is. Crazy? Unfortunately, reality. That is why Jelle Barentsz, professor of Radiology and Chair of the Prostate MR-Center of Excellence of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, is so passionate about implementing the MRI-technology for patients with (potential) prostate cancer. MRI promises simple, fast and good diagnosis and minimal invasive therapies. His dream is that MRI will become standard practice with men with increased PSA. And that Maastricht will chant: “Yes we scan”!

Bart Knols

If ever there was a connection between Maastricht and malaria, medical entomologist Dr. Knols discovered it: Rommedou (cheese). It earned him an Ig Nobel Prize at Harvard University in 2006. This self declared ‘out of the box maniac’ has an insatiable thirst to make malaria a disease of the past. 800 Million people today live in areas where they ran the risk of contracting malaria, yet 3,3 billion people remain exposed. As long as every 45 seconds a child dies of malaria, the war is on. But there’s a biting truth about malaria first. In what will turn out to be an eye-opening talk.

Cathy van Beek

Thinking of the future of health, we see patients and their treatment team sitting at the table of the Board of Directors. But how bumpy is the road they need to travel to the ivory tower of hospital management? Is there a patients voice in the decision making process? Cathy van Beek, member of the executive board and Chief Medical Officer of Radboud University Medical Centre, has a mission. To take the patients perspective and put it into action. Safety, monitoring, innovation services and quality of care are her focus points. And all from a patients point of view. We are delighted to have her on stage.

Geert Vandewalle

What the white stick does for blind people, Blue Assist can do for the intellectual disabled. BlueAssist is designed to reinforce trust between people. Trust to help better understand each other. To reach out and give a helping hand when necessary or needed. Dare to Connect! Not only for the intellectually disabled, but for everyone.
Geert Vandewalle is the driving force behind all this. He has in mind the UN resolution that states that disabled people should have the possibilities to be able to live as inter-dependent as anyone else.

Paul Grundy

Dr. Paul Grundy concentrates his efforts on driving comprehensive, linked and integrated healthcare. “I really stept into this job because it gave the best platform in the world to use the tools of information technology and data to do for the doctor’s mind what x-ray has done for their vision,” he says. Now, that’s the spirit we like here at TEDxMaastricht. A warm welcome for Paul Grundy IBM Global Director of Healthcare Transformation. President, Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. —

Marion Coster

Working in a general practice and aiding people with chronic illnesses is something Marion is proud of. It’s this daily work she feels compassionate about. But Marion is a compassionated musician also. The combination of these two led to something special she’s also very proud of. Being inspired by TEDxMaastricht 2011 and the Compassion for Care momevent she wrote the song ‘Compassion for Care’. Now, that’s what we call ‘Ideas Worth Doing’. We didn’t have to think long to decide that Marion should perform her song at TEDxMaastricht 2012.

Naveen Jain

Naveen Jain is a philanthropist, entrepreneur and technology pioneer. He was the founder of InfoSpace, is trustee of the board of the Singularity University and is currently walking around with plans to place a robot on the moon to mine rare minerals. He is chairman of the board of Moon Express. We don’t know about you, but we are very anxious to hear what Naveen Jain has to share with us about the future of healthcare.

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Judith Homberg

Using own experiences as an experimental test case. That’s what Judith Homberg, associate professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, does to get inspiration for new concepts in gene x environment psychiatric research. Whereas it is extremely difficult to tackle how genes affect brain and behaviour in psychiatric disorders – information that is needed to develop better medicines – the possibility that the environment can be used for therapy as well, seems to be overlooked. We are curious to hear from Judith Homberg how the environment can make us better.

Roni Zeiger

Roni Zeiger is best known as Dr. Google Health. Besides his work in a local care centre, he wants to use his expertise and knowledge to potentially help millions of people each day. What better tool for this than good old Google. We’re proud to have Roni Zeiger on board.
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Paul F. Levy

Paul Levy served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston. He is the author of a blog formerly entitled “Running a Hospital,” and in that regard was one of very few hospital CEOs to have shared thoughts publicly about hospitals, medicine, and health care issues.
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Stephen Friend

He had it all: fame, respect among his peers, a team of researchers and an excellent position at Merck & Co. And he gave it all away to pursuit his dream. Stephen Friend founded Sage Bionetworks to do for science what Facebook and Twitter did for the internet. Will this change healthcare? No. This will devastate healthcare as we know it.
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Maarten Lens-FitzGerald

From E-Patient to Ex-patient 2.0. Maarten is one of the first ‘famous’ e-patients in The Netherlands. He struggled with cancer and he survived. Between this struggle and survival he shared his journey on his weblog. To share. To inform. To hopefully help a little. And that’s what he did. And to our opinion even more than a little too.

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