Keynotes

Confirmed keynotes:

Maria-Therese Hoppe, Futurist is a founding member of "the global future forum", an independent network of leading futurists from around the world. Her background is in Cultural Studies, holding a PhD. in Social Anthropology . She writes sharp and humoristic columns for several magazines and is the author of numerous articles and books. Dr. Hoppe was for six years the director of research at The Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. Before then she worked for five years in the IT sector, mainly in the field of emerging new technologies. As early as in 1987 she was engaged in looking into future possibilities of telemedicine.

Dr. Wendy L. Schultz is director of Infinite Futures: Foresight Research and Training and has over twenty years' international foresight experience in academic, government, and business organisations. She earned her Ph.D. in Alternative Futures (Political Science) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Wendy is a Fellow and an Executive Board member of the World Futures Studies Federation; a Board Member of the Association of Professional Futurists, a member of the International Advisory Panel of the European Futurists Conference Lucerne; and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragment of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (London). She also organizes and coordinates the Applied Futurists Council which advises the foresight web portal Shaping Tomorrow.

Dick Willems is a general practitioner and a professor of Medical Ethics and is currently researching normative issues surrounding home-based health technologies, both high-tech and low-tech, and currently leads a project on ethical issues related to telecare. He teaches medical ethics to medical students, nurses, and physicians. He is the author of a book on the ethics of the gatekeeper function of the general practitioner, and has recently co-edited books on multifactorial genetics and on mundane forms of medical technology. He is a member of the Ethics and Law Standing Committee of the Health Council of the Netherlands.

John Crawford How can the rapid pace of technological innovation seen in the ICT industry contribute to better health, what will modern medicine demand from ICT and how will new ICT technology develop new ways of treatment? John Crawford is Medical Imaging Segment Executive at IBM. He has worked in a variety of industries including financial markets, banking, media, life sciences and healthcare. He represents IBM on the Advisory Board for HINE (Health Information Network Europe), and works closely with software companies, business partners, consultants and integrators in the healthcare industry in Europe and in the USA.

Dr. Jie Chen is director of the Key Lab of Health Technology Assessment and advisor of the National Institute of Hospital Management, Ministry of Health in China. She is a professor at the Department of Hospital Management, School of Public Health, Fudan University, a foundation council member and STRATEC member of Global Forum for Health Research. Also she is editorial board member of the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care.

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