Conference Report: World Health Summit

Hold once a year, the World Health Summit (WHS) has grown into the world’s most prominent forum for addressing global health issues. It takes place in Berlin and brings together key leaders from academia, politics, civil society, and the private sector to address the most pressing health-related challenges on the planet. Until July 31, 2017 students can register for 69 EUR. Some of our students attended the WHS last year.

By chance I was even wearing the WHS colours.

During the eighth World Health Summit (WHS) 2016, a lot of big and ambitious topics were discussed: medical care for refugees, access to medicine, epidemics such as Ebola or Zika, non-communicable diseases such as stroke, antimicrobial resistance (which constitutes one of today's major health challenges), translational research, technological innovations, data management and empowerment of women.

The WHS brought together about 1800 researchers, physicians, government officials, representatives from industry, non-governmental organizations, and healthcare systems from more than 90 countries to discuss the most pressing issues facing every facet of healthcare and medicine in the upcoming decade and beyond. Prominent participants were Herrmann Gröhe, the German minister of health, Emanuelle Charpentier from the Max Plank Institute for Infectious Diseases and Pascale Ehrenfreund from the German Aerospace Center ... just to do some name dropping.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE 

SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE

Rather than a series of snooze-inducing presentations, the three days were full of open dialogues and discussion rounds in small rooms with a handful of appointed speakers who gave short presentations, followed by group discussions with plenty of opportunities to ask questions. The atmosphere was very inspiring and everyone from high-level policy makers to students held discussions together as equals.

One highlight of the conference was the startup track pitch competition. This included amazing contributions such as Midge Medical, who invented a new blood testing device for malaria, or the startup Glasschair, who developed a wheelchair that can be navigated by eye movements, or COLDPLASMATECH, a startup that produces an amazing new solution to help wounds heal faster.

Attending this conference was a great opportunity to break beyond my comfort zone, meet interesting people from the health sector and of course do some networking (I recommend printing business cards if you want to go). But above all, it was a great conference to get updated on global health issues, and it made me want to focus even more on the translational aspect of science.

The conference ended with a call to action in five key central areas of global health: 

1) Empowerment of Women and Girls

2) Right to Health of Refugees and Migrants, 

3) Resilience and Global Health Security, 

4) Sustainable solutions against antimicrobial resistance, 

5) Investment in Research, Development and Health Innovation. 

It's all tall order, but nonetheless a good start!

by Claudia Willmes, PhD Alumni AG Eickholt/AG Schmitz

this article originally appeared  2016 in CNS Volume 9, Issue 4, From Cradle to Grave in the Brain