‘The Road Ahead’, academics, clinicians and industry working together

North-South MedTech Summit features healthcare and technology speakers across the UK

On 26th November 2021, a new virtual #MedTech summit was held led by the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative and Bournemouth University in partnership with the OVHcloud Startup Program and powered by Empact Ventures.

The event brought together hundreds of people in 20+ countries representing SMEs, innovators, academics and clinicians.

In the morning session, a keynote speech from David King, Digital Design Manager at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing and Research Centre (AMRC) covered the exciting new paradigm shift towards Surgery 4.0. The afternoon keynote speech from Dr Rob Middleton, Professor of Orthopaedics at Bournemouth University who focused on ‘The Road Ahead’ towards academics, clinicians and industry working together. 

The event also featured 35+ speakers across 7 roundtables with insightful discussions from Identifying Funding Options for MedTech to University and Industrial Collaborations. The speakers from across the MedTech ecosystem included Innovate UK, IQ Capital, the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network, the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), the University of Leeds, Brandon Medical Co and more. 

Throughout the event, MedTech startups and scale-ups across the UK, Ireland and Europe presented their innovations to the audience to welcome collaborations. These included QV Bioelectronics in Manchester, CanSense in Swansea, UNEEG Medical UK and Medisieve in London, iLof (Intelligent Lab on Fiber) in Oxford, Miwendo Solutions in Barcelona, VirtuLeap in Lisbon, Happyr Health in Cambridge and RemmedVR in Warsaw.

The event was also supported by HealthTech World and the Leeds Academic Health Partnership (LAHP). 

Vee Mapunde, Programme Director of the National Institute for Health Research Surgical MedTech Co-operative, commented:

“We are extremely grateful to the team at Empact Ventures for delivering our North-South MedTech Summit with Bournemouth University, and sourcing OVHcloud as our industry partner. They enabled the start of some very interesting conversations for stakeholders within the surgical medical technology sector, and these are now in the process of being translated into collaborations. This event brought together healthcare professionals, industry, academics and funders, to have discussions on next steps for digital surgery.”

Ian Jones, Head of External Engagement at Bournemouth University commented: “

We were delighted to co-host the North-South MedTech Summit showcasing MedTech collaborations supported by Empact Ventures and OVHcloud. At BU, we’re committed to helping people live better for longer, through the research we conduct, to the courses we teach and our industry partnerships. The Conference was a success and proved to be a great opportunity to engage with prospective partners showcasing the latest industry technology” 

Philip Marais, UK-Northern Europe Lead of the OVHcloud Startup Program commented:

“The North-South MedTech Summit showed again that collaboration is key to success in the MedTech ecosystem. Working together on this event with NIHR, Bournemouth University and Empact Ventures broke down silos and created great learning and economic opportunities for those involved and will certainly boost the efforts of the startups and scaleups that participated.”

Kosta Mavroulakis, Founder & CEO of Empact Ventures & Super Connect for Good, added:

“The North-South MedTech Summit was a fantastic event showcasing the best emerging MedTech startups and scale-ups addressing unmet needs in the healthcare system today and tomorrow. I’d like to thank all our partners, speakers, exhibitors and attendees for joining us for our third MedTech initiative of the year.”