The 4th annual Lake Nona Impact Forum kicked off Wednesday night with more than 250 respected entrepreneurs, accomplished health care leaders and household names gathered together to discuss the future and health and wellness. Day one served to establish themes and objectives of the week: to unlock innovation and create advancements in wellness, health technology and sustainability.
The opening discussion between CNN’s Sanjay Gupta and Johnson & Johnson Group Worldwide Chairman Sandi Peterson, served as an early highlight. Their conversation, “The Missing Link: A New Human-Centered Approach to Transforming Health and Wellbeing,” centered on collaboration and health care challenges on a global scale, along with how to get a better return on the vast investment currently made into an often fragmented health care system. Peterson challenged tech innovators to better integrate health information, make individual information portable, improve efficiencies and empower (and maybe even nudge) consumers to take control of their health.
The evening concluded with a multi-keynote segment titled “The Health Transformers.” The evening’s core themes ran through each talk, from the challenges of innovating in a reluctant industry to using data to drive both efficiencies and consumer empowerment, and, perhaps most importantly, encouraging and incentivizing individuals to take control of their health.
Perhaps the most insightful discussion came during the final panel between Eric Topol of Scripps Translational Science Institute and Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People.” Their “nature vs nurture” debate highlighted both the need for and opportunities around genomic research, and the undeniable link between one’s environment, access to health services and personal choices. Genetics and health are intertwined, they agreed, but so too are health and happiness.
The event’s next two days will continue to build and expand upon these themes, adding new voices to the collaborative, transformative process at the Lake Nona Impact Forum.
