Last week our team hosted Health Tech 2.0 - a global virtual conference about the future of health technology. After months of preparations, the day has come for us to run an all-day event bringing together 40+ speakers from all over the world to share their health tech stories and projects with us! Health Tech 2.0 was truly a global conference!

With more than 800 attendees and nine sessions throughout the day, we covered a wide range of topics from the world of Health Tech, such as:

➡️ The Cross-section of Beauty, Health, Science And Technology

➡️ Investing in Health Tech

➡️ Transforming Healthcare With AI

➡️ The Role of Technology In Creating Better Sexual Health

➡️ The Rise Of Innovation In the FemTech Space

➡️ Tech-Powered Solutions Paving The Way To Better Mental Health

➡️ The Future of Wearable Technology in Healthcare

➡️ Patient Of The Future - Opportunities And Challenges

➡️ Breaking Down The Stigma and Misconceptions in Healthcare

It was a day full of exciting and educational discussions, presentations, and insightful talks. The interest and feedback we got from all of you just prove how vital all these conversations are! And this Health Tech 2.0 conference is certainly not the last one we will run!

We feel proud and happy that Health Tech 2.0 gathered some of the most innovative companies, founders, investors, scientists, and clinicians who were willing to share their valuable knowledge, best practices, and advice with all the attendees. Apart from sharing industry knowledge, our speakers shared some personal stories, too, varying from fundraising as a small business, how to deal with the legislature, and various other business challenges when starting out, how to scale health tech company, balance work and life as a startup founder, hire the right team, manage a burnout, and so much more.

Our sponsors

Health Tech 2.0 wouldn’t be possible without the support of our partners and sponsors who are not only passionate about innovations in Health Tech but are also big supporters of WoW and what we do.

We want to use this opportunity to thank them all: Philips, Mouser Electronics, Garmin, Essity Ventures, Lelo, Fermata, Intimina, Fertifa.

Royal Philips is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment, and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring, and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care.

Mouser Electronics, a TTI and Berkshire Hathaway company, is an award-winning, authorized semiconductor and electronic component distributor focused on rapid New Product Introductions from its manufacturing partners for electronic design engineers and buyers. The global distributor’s website, Mouser.com, is available in multiple languages and currencies and features more than five million products from over 1,100 manufacturer brands. Mouser offers 27 support locations around the world to provide best-in-class customer service and ships globally to over 630,000 customers in more than 223 countries/territories from its 70,000 sq. meters state-of-the-art facility south of Dallas, Texas.

Garmin is a global company that designs, manufactures, and ships products worldwide. As a leading, worldwide provider of navigation, the company is committed to making superior products for automotive, aviation, marine, outdoor, and sports that are an essential part of its customers’ lives. Garmin's user-friendly products are not only sought after for their compelling design, superior quality, and best value, but they also have innovative features that enhance the lives of our customers. Garmin has more than 14,500 associates in 65 offices worldwide.

Essity Ventures is a strategic initiative of Essity to lead the change towards a more digitally-advanced and sustainable health and hygiene ecosystem in collaboration with startups and entrepreneurs. Essity is a leading global hygiene and health company, improving people’s well-being through its products and services with sales in approximately 150 countries under leading brands, such as Bodyform, Libresse, TENA, Lotus, Tempo, and Zewa.

LELO strives to grow out of the confines of a sex toy brand and into a self-care movement aimed at those who know that satisfaction transcends gender, sexual orientation, race, and age. LELO is offering the experience of ecstasy without shame, the pleasure of discovering all the wonders of one's body, thus facilitating their customers with confidence, that leads to a fulfilled intimate life. LELOi AB is the Swedish company behind LELO, where offices extend from Stockholm to San Jose, from Sydney to Shanghai.

fermata inc. is a community and start-up support ecosystem aimed to accelerate the access to knowledge and technologies developed for diversifying and liberating women's wellness. fermata's current work ranges from hosting events to build awareness within the Japanese market, providing product import and localization support to foreign companies, and selling femtech products in both online and in-person stores.

Intimina is a Swedish brand that offers the first and only range of products dedicated exclusively to all aspects of women’s intimate health. Its mission is to provide a comprehensive collection of products and information for women at every stage of life, from the first menstruation to beyond menopause. As a global brand available in major pharmacy chains, medical offices, and online, Intimina's vision is to make it easy for women, regardless of their age or location, to access reliable information and solutions for all their intimate health needs.

Fertifa is a London-based company named after its mission of providing “Fertility For All”, and is one of the pioneers in this space in the U.K. (and Europe). Although very young, the company says it already collaborates with a number of partners bringing its services to more than 700,000 U.K. employees, and works directly with a portfolio of corporate clients that have employee bases ranging from a few hundred to over >10,000 each, and has a team of world-class healthcare professionals, employee benefits experts, and fertility specialists.

Why did we decide to organize Health Tech 2.0?

2020 was the year in which we witnessed the transformation of the healthcare system as we know it. With limited access to healthcare, the power of technology in healthcare became apparent more than ever. The adoption of health tech applications, products, and solutions just proved that people were ready for a new era in healthcare - the one that is driven by technology, that is more accessible and focused on prevention.

Health is something we all have in common and we felt it was important to talk, inform, and educate about all the available solutions and innovations that can help the healthcare system, but also every individual who wants to take care of their health.

According to Accenture, 85% of health executives acknowledge that technology has become an inextricable part of the human experience.

We’re curious to see and witness what the future brings, what will be the next big thing in health tech, if there is any untapped potential when it comes to investing in this industry, how will the doctor-patient relationship change in the future, and how will companies tackle some of the most challenging healthcare issues with their innovative and disruptive technologies.

We tried answering all these questions throughout the day, or at least open a conversation and spark discussion around it. We are grateful to every single one of you who dedicated their day or an hour to tune it. In case you couldn’t join us we made sure to record all the sessions so that you can access them anytime, and here are some of the key quotes from our speakers!

The Agenda

📌 The Cross-section of Health, Science, Technology, And Beauty - Keynote talk by Raymon uit de Bulten, Director Startup Ventures at Philips Beauty

Session powered by Philips

We opened the Health Tech 2.0 with a keynote “The Cross-section of Health, Science, Technology, and Beauty” by Raymon uit de Bulten, Director Startup Ventures at Philips Beauty. We learned about the intersection of Beauty and Health, Philips vision and philosophy, and how Philips is tackling the problem of diversity in data in this space.

Raymon uit de Bulten:

➡️ “Philips considers the entire health journey: healthy living, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, home care”

➡️ “The concept of health has changed dramatically in the last year; we see the reinvention of our homes as a core element of a healthy life. And reinvention of the healthcare pathway is here to stay: adoption of the telehealth, and remote healthcare…”

➡️ Digital and technological innovation along the health continuum is key to expanding access to care.

➡️ “Philips is not a typical beauty company, but beauty is not typical either. Health and beauty are very much connected.”

➡️ "The most important thing is awareness - being aware of who the customer or patient is, and how their needs can be best represented in the product"

📌 Panel discussion ‘Investing in Health Tech’

Session powered by fermata, inc.

COVID-19 amplified digital technology innovation. Investments in areas such as on-demand healthcare and research and development catalysts remained among the top investment categories, according to Rock Health. Across 2020, as Rock Health reports, US digital health companies raised $14.1 billion in venture funding, the largest amount of capital deployed in a single year since Rock Health began tracking funding in 2011. This amount represents a 72% increase from the previous high water mark set in 2018.

Panel discussion ‘Investing in Health Tech’ discussed the untapped potential in this industry, what’s the state of the market when it comes to new ideas and businesses, and what’s the next big thing to invest in in the healthcare industry.

Moderator: Jenny Thomas, Director of DigitalHealth.London
Amina Sugimoto, DrPH, founder and CEO of fermata Inc.
Neha Tanna, Investment Partner at Joyance Partners
Jonathan Machado, Investment Director at Samsung NEXT
Pauliina Martikainen, Investment Director at Maki.vc

➡️Amina Sugimoto: “FemTech in Japan now is seen as the right for women to understand about their bodies, and it’s becoming a movement. A year ago, there wasn’t a single place in Japan where a menstrual cup was available. People heard of it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. With the arrival of period underwear, we saw a big change as the media start writing about all these options women now had, and I expect it to explode in this part of the world.”

➡️Jonathan Machado: “At Samsung, we see healthcare as one of the biggest opportunities today. It’s increasingly becoming a big focus for us, especially the intersection where wellness data can have clinical value; what your phone or watch can produce, which data, which biomarkers…”

➡️Neha Tanna: “Telemedicine is already now a very saturated market. In London alone, there are 50 telemedicine companies. The question is: Who’s gonna survive? Apart from telemedicine, what more can we offer? It will be about genuine virtual care.”

➡️Pauliina Martikainen: “Investment in virtual care will continue. But going forward, what will be interesting for us to monitor is how the new players are implementing data security measures. The last thing we want to see is the data leakage.”

📌 Panel discussion ‘Transforming Healthcare With AI’

Session powered by Mouser Electronics

2020 was the year in which we witnessed the transformation of the healthcare system as we know it. With limited access to healthcare, the power of technology in healthcare became apparent more than ever. The adoption of health tech applications, products, and solutions just proved that people were ready for a new era in healthcare - the one that is driven by technology, that is more accessible and focused on prevention.

Panel discussion ‘Transforming Healthcare with AI” questioned if the doctor-patient relationship has changed for good, can AI in healthcare replace human care completely, how can AI help make healthcare even more accessible and affordable.

Moderator: Dr. Annabelle Painter, NHS doctor and Member of the Digital Health Council at Royal Society of Medicine
Rebecca Wray, Associate Director in Digital Health Oncology at AstraZeneca
Melissa Berthelot, CEO of WarnerPatch
Hajyra Ilyas, AI engineering Delivery Lead at Babylon Health
Hadeel Ayoub, founder of BrightSign

➡️ Annabelle Painter: “Data is still held inconsistently throughout the healthcare system. We still have hospitals using paper notes. And when data is stored in that manner and coding is not prioritsed, using that date becomes a challenge. ”

➡️ Hajyra Ilyas: “AI is not there yet where it can build upon different signals that maybe a human can or human interaction. A lot of companies are struggling to build AI that can deal with more intuitive decision-making. We still have a long way to go. It’s important to have the right people in the team from the earliest stages. You need to make sure that you’ve got the right brains in the room really.”

➡️ Hadeel Ayoub: "The average for health tech startups to go from an idea to launch to the market is usually 7 years. It’s a very challenging space to be in. When it comes to adoption, what we’ve realised is that everybody wants in (hospitals, clinicians, schools, speech therapists), but every one of them has a process, and each is completely different."

➡️ Rebecca Wray: “It’s not the regulation that I found in pharma that is the barrier to innovation - it is the fear of it. When it comes to the biggest barriers to success in AI and what’s preventing its success, quality of data is a big issue and access to that quality data comes with a big investment sometimes. So that could be a huge barrier for startups trying to get in this space.”

➡️ Melissa Berthelot: On the biggest barriers to success in AI - “Innovation means that things have not been done before. New solutions need to create new data, which means that the already existing data is not suitable to provide that new type of information that clinicians need within the healthcare sector. So definitely a massive challenge is getting data that is good enough, good enough data for AI that needs to be provided. Also, having different steps to get that data is time-consuming so that might be a challenge as well, and the reason why some companies have failed before.”

📌 Panel discussion ‘The Role of Technology In Creating Better Sexual Health’

Session powered by LELO

In 2017, the size of the global sexual wellness market was over $26 billion and is forecasted to reach about $37.2 billion by 2025. But the true potential of this industry is, actually, much bigger - sextech feeds into mental health, fertility, and many other personal wellness and consumer healthcare categories.

Panel discussion ‘The Role of Technology In Creating Better Sexual Health’ explored the past, present, and future of sexual health and technology and looked into upcoming trends in this growing industry.

Moderator: Dominnique Karetsos, co-founder and CEO of The Healthy Pleasure Group
Soumyadip Rakshit, co-founder and CEO of MysteryVibe
Andrea Oliver, co-founder and CEO of Emjoy
Patricia López Trabajo, founder and CEO of MYHIXEL
Sara Kranjčec Jukić, Global Brand Manager at LELO

➡️ Dominnique Karetsos: “It’s no longer a conversation only around sex toys, sexual health is something to be explored, not to be tucked under the carpet.”

➡️ Sara Kranjčec Jukić: “The first lockdown of 2020 normalized sexual pleasure in the mainstream media. As an industry, we finally got a seat at the table. And finally, it was proven once more that sexual wellness (and therefore sexual pleasure) is an integral part of human wellbeing.

➡️ Andrea Oliver: Raising funds in this market may be slower than in other industries - we need a lot of patience while we continue educating. Find investors that share your mission and your vision.

➡️ Patricia Lopez Trabajo: The future of sex and wellness is linked to technology, especially AI and big data which can be applied to improve our sexual lives and experiences.

📌 Panel discussion ‘The Rise Of Innovation In the FemTech Space'

Session powered by Essity Ventures

Once considered a niche market, FemTech is one of the fastest-growing health industries at the moment estimated to reach $50 billion by 2025. With the surge of innovations in fertility, menstrual health, sexual health, pregnancy, menopause, it is delivering next-generation solutions to female health issues that were neglected and under-researched for way too long.

In this session, we explored what’s next for FemTech, why it’s important to see FemTech as an industry that goes beyond just female (reproductive) health, and why this sector is poised for even bigger growth in the years to come.

Moderator: Reenita Das, Transformational Health Partner and Senior Vice President at Frost & Sullivan
Tania Boler, founder and CEO of Elvie
Halle Tecco, founder and CEO of Natalist
Gloria Kolb, co-founder and CEO of Elidah
Marie-Laure Mahé, Vice President for E-Commerce, Marketing, Consumer Goods at Essity

➡️ Marie-Laure Mahe: “Essity’s Libresse study in Europe showed that 60% of women wouldn’t talk about their women’s health and intimate area, and 70% wouldn’t talk about their vulva; women’s health is still a taboo. Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women and still, not all doctors are familiar with it, as brands, we all need to do our part in education about women’s health.”

➡️ Gloria Kebb: “Taking care of your pelvic health is still not considered a necessity and pelvic health still remain a taboo. My mum would constantly tell me to lie down when I gave birth - and this is because she had two pelvic floor surgeries herself... I would constantly wonder why she didn’t tell me and she said “Eh, we don’t really talk about it” - this is a cultural issue in Asia and the Middle East… however, I do think it’s changing and it will take time.”

➡️ Reenita Das: “In 2020, the Femtech industry faced 5% growth, while we expect it will get to 7% growth in 2021. The sectors that will drive growth this year will be fertility (with the biggest growth of 9%), pregnancy, menopause, and menstruation. In 2020, we saw major disruptions happening in pregnancy, almost 80% of expecting mothers opted for a telehealth consultation.”

➡️ Halle Tecco: “The reason I founded Natalist was that I was using products by male-centric companies that did not cater to my user experience. In order to see more innovation happening that could make a difference, we need to see more funding going to female-led businesses. Men tend to be evaluated on their potential whilst women are evaluated on what they have already accomplished.”

➡️ Tania Boler: ”To anyone in the medical devices space, 2020 was a hard year in every aspect of the value chain: investor climate, supply chain and major disruptions, retail landscape and its shift from physical to online, and customers we were serving. We focused a lot on providing support, content, and community to all our customers. Medical devices were so poorly designed when it comes to women’s health, women need to be at the center of the entire design process.”

📌 Panel discussion ‘Tech-Powered Solutions Paving The Way To Better Mental Health’

The overall number of people reporting mental health problems has been going up in recent years, and the global pandemic took a toll on the mental health of all of us. More Americans are turning to anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications as the coronavirus pandemic upends everyday life for many, a new study found, and demand for key antidepressants is threatening to exceed supply in the UK – where prescriptions have already more than doubled over the last decade. Investment into mental health technology has boomed, reaching £580 million in 2019.

Panel discussion ‘Tech-Powered Solutions Paving The Way To Better Mental Health’ explored how has COVID-19 affected the digital health landscape, especially in relation to mental and why now, more than ever, is important to leverage the power of technology to ask for help, consultation, find relief, unwind, and relax.

Moderator: Laura Lovett, Managing Editor of MobiHealthNews
Jolawn Victor, Chief International Officer at Headspace
Daniel Mansson, founder and CEO of Flow Neuroscience
Dr. Monika Roots, Chief Medical Officer at Sanvello
Elettra Bianchi Dennerlein, founder and co-CEO at MyOnlineTherapy

➡️ Dr. Monika Roots: “Pandemic accelerated the growth of virtual healthcare. User experience became the centerpiece of how that care is delivered. With the ability of digital care, we had the opportunity to make mental health and wellness a preventive service.”

➡️ Jolawn Victor: “The tremendous change we saw in 2020 was in terms of accessibility and affordability. We witnessed the evolution from live therapists’ support to this digital transformation. People now have access to mental health relief literally in their pocket.”

➡️ Elettra Bianchi Dennerlein: “Behaviour shifted. People realized that online mental health care can be just as effective, and quality-driven as offline.”

➡️ Daniel Mansson: “We have to have a holistic view and approach to the patient. We have to make sure that we look at the data, but also to treat the whole patient and the outcomes will be better. Not only did we see the huge growth of virtual healthcare, but we also saw the huge acceleration of adoption.``

📌 Panel discussion ‘The Future of Wearable Technology in Healthcare’

Session powered by Garmin

When it comes to proactive management of a healthy lifestyle, wearable technology products have been at the frontier of innovation for years now. From measuring our steps, how well we sleep, heart rate, body temperature, and much more, wearables can equip us with knowledge about our body and health-related habits. Growing demand for wearables has also resulted in insurers and companies supplying wearable health tech devices to their consumers and employees.

The panel discussion ‘The Future of Wearable Technology in Healthcare’ explored what’s next for wearables in the healthcare industry?

Moderator: Parm Raeewal, Global Public Policy Manager at Vodafone
Nadia Kumentas, Vice President Marketing at Muse
Heloise Auger, Biomedical Researcher at Hexoskin
Mika Miyake, Business Development Manager at Garmin Health
Sara Cinnamon, Design Director at McKinsey

➡️ Mika Miyake: “Pandemic increased the awareness of how capable wearables could be in our lives. The way people spend money changed; we saw more focus on health and wellness, and people spending more on healthcare products. Garmin’s smartwatch users are 50% female, 50% male. Wearables are no longer reserved for gadget-lovers or athletes anymore, they are for everyone and that is what we’re seeing at Garmin with more people being focused on their health.”

➡️ Heloise Auger: “Telemedicine became a significant way people obtain healthcare services. What has come to light is the lack of data physicians have access to when the patient is remote, and wearables here can play a crucial role.”

➡️Sara Cinnamon: “The value of wearables is in getting the data into the world that patients experience: being able to understand contextual information such as the environment, their home life. But one of the challenges is getting things to be actually wearables, so they’re actually comfortable. There’s a balance of the data you’re getting but if something is uncomfortable to wear - you’re not gonna get that data. Another concern that we have is the accessibility of this technology. People with higher income are more likely to have access to this technology.”

➡️ Nadia Kumentas: “Pandemic affected everyone in different ways, but what we witnessed at Muse is the stress and not sleeping that everyone faced. So, we’ve been focusing a lot on stress management as stress management is an important factor in sleep health. Accessibility and high price points are still a barrier for a larger public to access some of the awesome wearable devices that can make a difference.”

📌 Panel discussion ‘Patient Of The Future - Opportunities And Challenges’

Session powered by Fertifa

The patient of today wears wearables to maintain a healthy lifestyle, tracks their health via apps, googles their symptoms, and sees their doctor virtually.

During this session, we discussed what will the patient and doctor-patient relationship look like in the future, and will the demand for a more personalized approach in healthcare be achievable?

Moderator: Dr. Saira Ghafur, Digital Health Lead at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London
Maryam Nabavi, co-founder and CEO of Babbly
Aashima Gupta, Director, Global Healthcare Solutions at Google
Maya Baratz Jordan, CEO and Founding Partner of Founders Factory New York

➡️ Aashima Gupta: “What COVID has done in our community is a heightened sense of urgency - for the stakeholders, it is all hands on deck which were nice to see. We are seeing the emergence of hybrid care models. Telehealth is definitely not going away. Both physicians and consumers want to use telehealth. The adoption and embracement of telehealth already happened, and new behaviors are formed. What we believe will happen is that now we will have this hybrid model of how the care will be delivered: in-person procedures, labs, surgery, they are going to stay. But a lot of it can happen in a virtual setting, too - from primary care, chronic care, etc.”

➡️ Maryam Babavi: [After COVID] “The mental model changed - therapists were far more flexible in adopting more holistic approaches like parent coaching. The biggest shift we saw was more open-mindedness and receptivity to new models of care.”

➡️ Maya Baratz Jordan: “It used to be a very binary system. If your kid was sick, you could stay home or you could go to the doctor’s office. And now with COVID, people were forced to use telemedicine, and what was surprising was the fact that, according to the Mayo Clinic study, people actually prefer it. Patients are now realizing that there is a better way and I think that telemedicine is here to stay.”

📌 Panel discussion ‘Breaking Down The Stigma and Misconceptions in Healthcare’

Session powered by INTIMINA

When a person is labeled by their illness, they are no longer seen as an individual but as part of a stereotyped group. Negative attitudes and beliefs toward this group create prejudice which leads to negative actions and discrimination. From stigmas and biases related to women’s health to mental health and various disabilities, it’s often caused by a lack of education as well as support.

Since everyone has a role in creating a healthy community that supports recovery and social inclusion and reduces discrimination, this panel discussion explored the ways we can break down the stigma and misconception in healthcare.

Moderator: Susan Solinsky, Chief Growth Officer at Ellipsis Health and Director of HITLAB's Women's Health Tech Initiative
Amy Millman, President at Springboard Enterprises
Danela Zagar, Global Brand Manager at Intimina
Victoria Hornby, CEO of Mental Health Innovations
Christina Nesheva, former Co-founder and Director of the Innovation Lab of ViiV Healthcare

➡️ Victoria Hornby: "Reaching out for help is the brave thing to do, and people will welcome that. One thing we know about mental health is that prevention is so much better than cure... the earlier you get that help, the easier it is to recognize what is happening. It is important to educate people that there is support and help available. We need to be talking about mental health more."

➡️ Danela Zagar: "We’re being raised and told that menstruation is something you don’t talk about with everyone. We have to change how we think about menstruation, and we need to end period-shaming. When it comes to education, according to our research we did in the US on 2000 women, 47% of women cannot identify their vagina or find the cervix on the illustration that was shown to them. And if you are going to use the menstrual cup, you really need to know your body and explore your intimate parts."

➡️ Amy Millman: “We heard too many times: Women’s health is a niche. And we witnessed decades of lack of data when it comes to women’s health, and dismissing women’s health issues with a response: “Just deal with it.”

➡️ Christina Nesheva: “HIV is still very stigmatized, in many aspects. Stigma is not only one word. There’s the stigma of the disease, negative perception, and biases because of sexual orientation perhaps, there’s the element of self-stigma as well, so there are many layers. People living with HIV worry about disclosing their status and how they will be perceived as they feel judged. We also have to be mindful of the language we use as it can be offensive a lot of times.

On behalf of our organizing team, we would like to use this opportunity to thank not only our brilliant speakers, but our moderators as well who did a fantastic job in making these discussions relevant, interesting, and educational. But, also, to all of you who made them so engaging with all your comments in the chatbox, and your questions! We had a great day discussing Health Tech 2.0! Thank you! 🥰

📌 If you attended the conference, then you already know that we are planning another one… we will be sharing more info soon so make sure to follow us on social media to stay up to date - Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram / Facebook

📌 If you wish to become a WoW member, learn from and connect with our community of entrepreneurs, designers, and technologists, leverage valuable resources, and discover career opportunities, you can do so here.

📌 Check out our upcoming WoW global virtual events here.

📌 Last but not least, get in touch if you’d like to collaborate with us for one of our future conferences, we would love to hear from you!

Health Tech 2.0 - A Global Virtual Conference About The Future Of Health Technology