UNY-HIG Kickoff and Open Mic Pitch Night

Getting across the gap from great idea to market adoption in healthcare is not easy. Regulations, incumbents, and an excess of caution all slow adoption. But in no industry is innovation so important. It goes without saying that medical innovations save lives, so persist we must and persist we do.

***** Update *****

The Event is free thanks to sponsorship by the Alliance for Better Health. Thank you Dr. Reider!

***** Update *****

Since 2008 my team and I at MedStartr and Health 2.0 NYC have been working on ways to get new ideas out to market in healthcare. We have found that one of the best ways to drive innovation is to develop local events that allow leading organizations, healthcare stakeholders, entrepreneurs, inventors, designers, programmers, deep thinkers and investors to gather converse and collaborate for the improvement of care. We have created such "Healthcare Innovation Ecosystems" around the world and would like to start one in Upstate New York with your help.

As a first event, let's get together and plan an event like the one we set up next (https://www.meetup.com/UNY-HIG/events/238802408/). If you are a startup, community leader, physician, healthcare investor or are thinking about any of the above, come on over to Brown's in Troy. We have reached out to RPI, SUNY A, AMC, and other local organizations and gotten strong interest and support in developing this group. For this first event, if enough people sign up, we will get a room and maybe do some pitches and such. Otherwise we will meet and get to know each other and maybe have dinner.

Speakers

Alex Fair, BS, RPI, '91, AMC '89-'91 - CEO and Managing Director MedStartr / MedStartr Ventures speaks on "How to Build a Healthcare Innovation Ecosystem"

Jacob Reider, MD - CEO at Alliance for Better Health Care speaks on "Innovation for Health: finding the path to success, and avoiding the piles of dog poo along the way."

...and maybe you? These events are crowdsourced so bring a deck and tell us what you are up to!

Topics for discussion:

• Name of the group (unless everyone really loves UNY-HIG)

• Leaders - Co-organizers (currently just Sean and I (Alex) but a strong meetup group often has 4-6 co-organizers)

• University and Hospital involvement (some positive responses already!)

• Possible Venues (We will be in one of Brown's event spaces that RPI uses to good effect but they have larger spaces too)

• Startups in the area and ways to reach them

• Potential Sponsors

• Dues vs Sponsors vs Ticket sales

• Open Mic night for pitches - get 5 minutes to tell the crowd what you are working on and pitch us

• etc...

First round is on MedStartr and the Alliance for Better health, so we look forward to seeing you there!

Thanks for your interest in this idea. It will only succeed with the support of a crowd so please spread the word and get involved. If you have questions please email us at UNYHIG@MedStartr.com.

Agenda:

5:00 - Meet, Tweet & Greet with healthy snacks and beverages #UNYHIG

5:45 - Welcome to UNYHIG by Sean and Alex

6:00 - Dr. Reider Speaks

6:25: - Alex Speaks

6:40 - Open Mic

7:20 - Roundtable on discussion points above

8:20 - Reception

9:15 - After Event?

Thanks for being part of UNYHIG!

Sean and Alex