FWD50 is a global digital government gathering held annually in Ottawa, Canada. Each year, technologists, executives, and industry come together for a week of content and discussion, focused on steering progress and innovation towards our better selves.

We’re covering a myriad of topics in 2020, and featuring some key speakers for each topic. 

This year, one of our focuses will be around Digital Health.

Precision Medicine promises to improve quality of life and reduce cost by using data to predict, diagnose, and treat disease. From understanding mental health issues, to managing private medical data, to reinventing drug creation, digital health is hot. And with healthcare a major part of every modern country’s budget, governments need to get smart about digital health fast.

We’re devoting an afternoon at FWD50 to digital health, from the frontiers of data science and mental health, to the regulation of data collection in medical devices, to visualizing complex information for better decision-making.

Relevant speakers

Dr. Sean Hill directs the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics. He creates mathematical brain models that could fundamentally change how we understand and treat mental illness, pulling the field out of anecdotes and subjective evaluations into hard science and real data.

What if your implant gets hacked? With the rise of the Internet of Things, an abundant landscape of trackers and tools, and the miniaturization of medical devices, security is a real issue. Dr. Anita Finnegan is the CEO of Nova Leah, which makes software to tackle the risks of cybersecurity in medical devices.

Understanding health patterns is key to tackling chronic health issues, stopping the spread of disease, and even managing healthcare systems at scale. Amanda Makulec builds visualization products for Federal, non-profit, and private sector clients following nearly a decade working on public health programs in a dozen countries.