As springtime lifts off, some events have become delightfully anticipated in my schedule and the first, in the Age Tech category, is the CABHI Global Virtual Summit presented by Canada’s Centre for Aging & Brian Health Innovation (CABHI) and in 2024, in its 6th year the title was Defy Dementia. Like last year, this summit was a one day event with the focus as always on supporting initiatives to advance technology innovation in aging and brain health.
With that, the closing highlight of the summit was the Mentorship, Capital and Continuation Program (MC2) People’s Choice Competition. First a quick word to say that MC2is a heftily sponsored investment program that fits within the broader AgeTech space, and it financially supports early-stage Canadian healthtech and fintech companies. Naturally, as it relates to the title of this summit, one of the five core innovation themes is Cognitive and Mental Health.
In the 2024People’s Choice the field was narrowed down to twelve entrants with only one to be voted on by summit attendees. In 2023 there were fifteen and we could vote for our top two. Tough as it was to choose from short presentations, of the four that impressed me, the one I voted for and the actual winner was MindLink Air – “the first all-day eye tracking smartglasses” with their premise that “Better brain health starts with your eyes.”
Let this MindLink Airvideo linktell the story. And simply to spread the mirth around, I can’t help but mention my second choice – Braver– an app designed as a communication tool for health professionals and health organizations and clinics, with the purpose, as they state, “Making the healthcare ecosystem more collaborative”. This resonated with me as a result of listening to, since 2021, the highly informative Rotman Digital Health webinar series moderated by Will Falk.
The 2024 summit also included panel conversations. I note two here. First, Closing the Gap: Understanding Pain Points where once again one of the essential components of technology evaluations at CABHI was reinforced in dialogue with panelists; that is how engaging end users, older adults, caregivers and healthcare providers with design innovators in the process, is essential to successful design outcomes before products get to market.
Another CABHI program – Spark – is geared towards supporting point of care workers, managers and researchers, so the second panel of note showcased three of this year’s Spark entrants, one of which featured Dr. Kate Dupuis – Schlegel Innovation Leader in Arts & Aging at Sheridan College. Kate spoke to the Intergenerational Jamboree Music Therapy Program which caught my ear, so to speak, as it fits in with Global Intergenerational Weeklater this month.
Ending this post with the beginning of the summit, my strongest memory is no doubt that of hearing keynote speaker Harris Eyre MD, PhDwho spoke to his work on Brain Capital and the Brain Economy. So much to digest here that I will need to elaborate on the thoughts he shared in a future post next month, but one statement he made stands out in support of the CABHI mandate – “our current economy is ‘brain negative’ with its lack of investment in brain health.”
