Roberto Ascione
Healthware International, Salerno, Italy
Roberto Ascione is a pioneer in digital health and a recognized thought leader, people-inspiring founder, serial entrepreneur and global manager.
With 20 years of experience he has been focusing on marketing and communications, business transformation and innovation in health and wellness.
John Attard
John Attard is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology officer of Playing Forward.
He is a leading and award-winning industry specialist in visual effects and digital production architecture (Academy Award, Gladiator, and a Davide Di Donatello’s for Aureliano Amadei’s, 20 Cigarettes).
John’s technical career in film and television has spanned from the artistic, to the bleeding edge technological design. His most recent contributions include pipeline management for films such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Disney) and The Jungle Book (Disney).
As Co-Founder of Playing Forward, John is bringing decades of cutting-edge computer graphics technologies, formerly reserved for feature films, to mobile devices in order to achieve the Playing Forward mission of creating content to help children live their best lives.
Playing Forward is based in Santa Monica, CA, and manages teams in Rome and New York
Donato Bonifazi
Donato Bonifazi, (MEcon), specialised in European Project Management, certified Project Manager.
He is Consorzio per Valutazioni Biologiche e Farmacologiche (CVBF) Chief Executive Officer and Legal Representative of CVBF Branch of Albania. Legal Representative of the TEDDY European Network of Excellence for Paediatric Clinical Research.
He is strongly involved in the enhancement of clinical research and member of several Networks and Associations. In particular, he is President of AICRO (Italian Association of Clinical Research Organizations), member of the Paediatric Working Group and chair of the Events & Training Working Group of the EUCROF (European CRO Federation) and Member of Working Parties of Enpr-EMA at EMA (Young Patients Advisory Groups; Trial Readiness and Preparedness; Public-private partnership). He is between the founders of INCiPiT, the Italian Network for paediatric clinical trials.
Luca Borro
Luca Borro, 3D specialist and researcher at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome.
At Bambin Gesù, Luca is involved in developing 3D technologies applied to medicine and for biomedical applications.
He deals with 3D reconstructions and 3D printing of anatomical parts for pre-surgical planning and development of 3D Bioprinting technology with which he is working on bone and cartilagie tissue regeneration.
Elena Bozzola
Elena Bozzola, medical doctor, actually working at Pediatric and Infectious Diseases Unity, Bambino Gesù Children Hospital, Rome, Italy.
Author or co-author of 85 medical reports in Pubmed-Medline.
Member of Editorial Board and Guest/Section Editor of several scientific journals on pediatric and infectious diseases.
Actually member of the Board Comitee of the Italian Society of Pediatrics.
John Brownstein, PhD
John Brownstein, Ph.D. is the Chief Innovation Officer of Boston Children’s Hospital and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He directs the Computational Epidemiology Group at the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program in Boston. Dr. Brownstein has advised the World Health Organization, Institute of Medicine, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House on real-time public health surveillance
Anthony Chang, MD, MBA, MPH, MD
Dr. Chang is Chief Intelligence and Innovation Officer, at CHOC Children’s. Also known as “Dr A.I.” he launched the first editions of Pediatrics 2040 and is now chair of Aimed, the most important conference on AI in medicine. He is the founder and medical director of the nascent Medical Intelligence and Innovation Institute (MI3) that is supported by the Sharon Disney Lund Foundation. He is chair of the board of the international Society for Pediatric Innovation (iSPI).
Timothy Chou, PhD
Dr. Chou is an author, cloud computing expert, and lecturer at Stanford University. Between 1999 and 2005, he served as President of Oracle On Demand, the fastest-growing business inside Oracle during that time. He launched the first course on cloud computing in Stanford.
Filippo Cipriani, PhD
Rare Disease Patient Advocacy Lead & Head of Open Innovation Projects, Sanofi Genzyme
Filippo Cipriani is currently Rare Disease Patient Advocacy Lead & Head of Open Innovation Projects for Sanofi Genzyme, where he previously covered multiple positions, at national and at European level, in the fields of Health Technology Assessments, Outcome Research, Pricing & Reimbursement and Market Access.
Over the years he developed a specific interest in the interconnection between science and society. In 2015 he developed MAKEtoCARE, a multistakeholder initiative on patients and caregivers bottom up and participative innovation website.
Prior to Sanofi Genzyme, Filippo Cipriani spent over 6 years as research fellow for EMBL (Heidelberg, Germany) and Cancer Research UK (London, UK) before serving as Health Economist for the Emilia Romagna Regional Health and Social Agency (Bologna, Italy) and in GlaxoSmithkline (Verona, Italy).
He holds a BSc in Industrial Biotechnology from the University of Bologna, a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University College of London and a MSc in International Health Care Management, Economics and Policy (MIHMEP) from the L. Bocconi School of Management, Milan.
David Cole
David is Co-Founder of Thinking of Oscar and Daddy to Holly, Oscar, Barney and Leo. David is a keen triathlete and cricketer and is training to compete in a number of events throughout 2019. These include the London Marathon (his first ever marathon) and culminating in the Zurich Iron Man triathlon in July (which will finish with his second marathon), all to raise funds for Thinking of Oscar.
David works for IBM’s Watson Health division, where he leads Business Development and Innovation across EMEA. Having spent 20 years in IBM, David looked to move into the health side of the business following the death of Oscar as he wanted his work to be truly meaningful. Watson is changing the face of healthcare by augmenting human expertise by helping to put the right information in the hands of clinicians and health specialists in order that they can make the best decisions for and with their patients. David hopes that this kind of innovation will eventually be pervasive within pediatric care.
Bruno Dallapiccola, MD
Prof Dallapiccola is a renowned medical genetist and he is currently the Scientific Director of the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital. He leads several activities in the field of genetic diseases discovery and coordinates a hospital program for undiagnosed diseases.
Andrea Del Fattore
Dr. Del Fattore is the coordinator of Bone Physiopathology Group at Bambino Gesù Chidren’s Hospital in Rome. His research was relevant to understand new functions and pathways associated with the skeleton, including the stomach-bone axis and bone-energy metabolism. He is also interested in the study of rare bone diseases and the mechanisms of bone regeneration.
Begonya Nafria Escalera MsC
Institut de Recerca Sant Joan De Deu and Fundaciò Sant Juan De Deu, Barcelona, Spain
Begonya Nafría, MsC, is Patient Advocacy Manager at Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu and Fundació Sant Joan de Déu. Coordinator of YPAG (Young Persons’ Advisory Group)-KIDS Barcelona and RareCommons platform. Ms. Nafría is the Coordinator of eYPAGnet (European YPAG network – accredited by EnprEMA), Member of the Course Committee of Eupati (European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation) and Chair of the Educational Committee of ICAN (International Children Advisory Network).
Sherry Farrugia
Sherry Farrugia is Chief Operating and Strategy Officer, Pediatric Technology Center, Georgia Institute of Technology,and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She is currently vice president of the international Society for Pediatric Innovation (iSPI). In 2018 she received the Women in Technology (WIT) Woman of the Year Award in the medium business category.
Francesca Fedeli
Brain enthusiast and Proud Mom of Mario, Founder of Fightthestroke.org, Book author #lottaesorridi, TED speaker and TEDMED ambassador
Claudio Fracasso
Pfizer, Rome, Italy
He is global Pediatric Medical Director at Pfizer. With a long experience in Basic and Clinical Research field, Dr Fracasso has deep knowledge of pharmaceutical industries thanks to a close interaction with CR&D, Medical, Pharmacovigilance and Regulatory Departments. In Clinical Research he has contributed to the development of drugs in many therapeutic areas, with great results in Infectious Diseases, Transplants and Inflammation, Rheumatology, Bone Diseases, Cardiovascular, Oncology, Hematology.
Francesco Gesualdo
Francesco Gesualdo is a pediatrician. He has been working as a researcher at the Bambino Children’s Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy, since 2008. His main research interests are pediatric infectious diseases, with a specific focus on pertussis and vaccine preventable diseases, and digital communication, with a focus on vaccines. In the past years, he has developed an experience in digital epidemiology, studying the use of Twitter for analysing flu epidemics and allergic diseases, and participating in the development of a platform exploiting different web sources for analysing vaccine confidence among the general public. He coordinated a project financed by the WHO dedicated to the analysis of the behavior of users on websites belonging to the Vaccine Safety Net, and he is currently working on a project, financed the European Commission (the European Joint Action for Vaccines) dedicated to the evaulation of vaccine confidence on social media at the European level.
Francesco Gesualdo also conducts daily clinical activity as a family pediatrician, with a specific interest in breastfeeding and in vaccine promotion
Sally Jackson
Sally Jackson, MSc, is an Epidemiologist currently based in Rome, Italy. She works internationally on innovative projects related to disease control, health and wellbeing using Mixed Methods including Human Centred Design approaches. At OPBG, Sally has been working on the i-CONSENT project – a European Union funded consortium that aims to improve the information that participants receive from clinical studies. She spent 4 years living in Rwanda where she developed, implemented, monitored and evaluated innovative health interventions including vaccines, data systems, and community health projects. In Europe she has consulted for both the public sector and industry. This has included writing ECDC technical guidelines on the design and implementation of Immunisation Information Systems, and supporting the Scientific Panel for Health – a science-led stakeholder platform mandated by the EC to identify health research and innovation bottlenecks and solutions. She also has experience working on community HIV interventions in India; assessing whether digital data could be used to support the monitoring of emerging diseases in Indonesia; teaching science communication in Kazakhstan; and conducting research on environmental epigenetics in The Gambia, Egypt, and Korea.
Shaf Keshavjee
Dr. Shaf Keshavjee MD MSc FRCSC FACS is the current Surgeon-in-Chief at University Health Network in Toronto, the Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program, as well as a clinical scientist and professor with the University of Toronto. He gained international recognition for the development of his lung preservation solution for donor lungs en route to transplantation; this solution is now the standard technique utilized by transplantation programs wrldwide. His work has allowed for an increase in the number of available donor lungs.
Narendra Kini, MD
Dr. Kini is CEO of Miami Children’s Health System and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. He has been instrumental in expanding the hospital’s network to bring Nicklaus Children’s Hospital-quality pediatric care to children and families throughout the region and with the hospital’s enhanced global telemedicine effort to South America as well as to many other nations.
Pekka Lahdenne, MD, PhD
Pekka Lahdenne is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Helsinki University Hospital, Head of Digital and Innovative Services at the New Children’s Hospital in Helsinki. He leads the operational design of the hospital. New Children’s Hospital, a much anticipated public hospital of HUS Helsinki University Hospital, opened doors in September 2018. The hospital is a state-of-the-art unit in HUS’s top-rate specialized health care for pediatric patients.
Franco Locatelli, MD, PhD
Franco Locatelli is a Full Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pavia and Head of the Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology, Ospedale Bambino Gesù, Rome. Prof. Locatelli is a well-renowned expert of haematological malignant and non-malignant disorders of childhood. He leads the largest programme of treatment of childhood cancers in Italy.
Mariangela Lupo, M.A.
TEDDY European Network of Excellence for Paediatric Clinical Research, Bari (Italia)
Patients Advocacy Manager of TEDDY European Network of Excellence for Paediatric Clinical Research.
Head of the Training and Advocacy Area at Consorzio per Valutazioni Biologiche e Farmacologiche (CVBF) and Team Leader of KIDS Bari, the first YPAG in Italy.
She is responsible for the activities dedicated to patients advocacy and leader of the “Active engagement of children and adolescents in the themes of clinical research” Working Group at TEDDY European Network of Excellence for Paediatric Clinical Research.
Member of Working Parties of Enpr-EMA at EMA (Young Patients Advisory Groups; Training) and member of the Communication Working Group of EUCROF.
Anna Odone
Associate Professor of Public Health – Director of the School of Public Health of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy.
Prof. Odone qualified in Medicine and specialized in Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Parma, Italy. She received an M.Sc. in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (London, UK) and an M.P.H. in Health Policy and Management as a Fulbright Scholar from the Harvard School of Public Health (Boston, US). She holds a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Parma.
Since 2017 she is Associate Professor of Public Health at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan, Italy) and, from 2018, Director of its School of Public Health. She serves as consultant physician, responsible for the Unit of Clinical Epidemiology and HTA at the San Raffaele Research Hospital (HSR) and she is member of HSR Ethics Committee.
Professor Odone’s research is in the field of infectious diseases control with a focus on vaccines and immunisation programmes and policies. Currently she is part of the European Joint Action on Vaccination (EU-JAV) and PI or Co-PI of several research projects, currently including one on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support vaccine uptake in Europe, one on the impact of different immunization policies on coverage and one on the epidemiology and control of tuberculosis in Italy. Odone’s competencies and experience in the field of vaccine preventable diseases have been useful in serving on various scientific boards and committees, including: the Italian Society of Public Health’s work group on vaccines and immunization polices, the IFA European Committee on Adult Vaccinations Work Group, the Coalition for Life-Course Immunisation, the Happy Ageing Alliance. She consulted the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for projects on HPV infection and vaccine and on key infectious diseases affecting migrant populations in the EU/EEA. She is author or co-authors of two university textbooks, five book chapters, several reports and thesis and, over 80 Medline indexed research articles
Lucia Pannese
Lucia Pannese, mathematician, CEO of imaginary, has more than 20 years managing experience in international innovation & research projects dealing with serious games, gamification, virtual reality and enabling technologies, particularly for eHealth, training and behavioural change.
With numerous Italian and international publications and presentations she is often invited at international conferences dealing with the Serious Games and digital interactive technologies topics.
Francesco Patalano
Head of Patients Reported Outcomes Center of Excellence
Francesco is the Global Head of the Center of Excellence on Patients Reported Outcomes.
Francesco is MD with specialization in Respiratory Medicine, Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Former Senior Global Program Head in the Respiratory Franchise, Francesco has extensive experience in drug development with several products developed to approval.
Previously Francesco was Managing Director and President of SkyePharma Europe.
He also managed R&D and manufacturing organizations in Europe and Canada and has served as Chairman or Director in boards of Swiss, French and Canadian organizations.
Todd Ponsky, MD
Dr. Ponsky is a Professor of surgery at the University of Cincinnati and Director of Clinical Growth and Transformation at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He is the Vice President of The International Pediatric Endosurgery Group (IPEG), Chair of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Telementoring, and holds leadership positions in APSA and SAGES.
Giuseppe Recchia
Graduated in Medicine, University of Padua, Dr. Recchia carried out research at the Renal Transplantation and Dialysis Center of Verona Hospital and as a Research Fellow at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. He joined GSK in 1984 and after different rolesat GSK Research and Development Centre in Verona (Director of Clinical Research, coordinator of New Product Development), he served as Medical & Scientific Director GSK Italy until Dec 2018. Dr. Recchia holds a position of Vice President of Smith Kline Foundation and sponsor of the projects “Digital Therapy for Italy” #DTxITA, “Artificial Intelligence for Health, Research and Care” #AI4RS and “Expert Patient in…”. In January 2019 he co-founded daVinci Digital Therapeutics, an innovative startup for the research, development and marketing of digital therapeutics for mental and other chronic diseases.
Aurelio Secinaro
Dr Aurelio Secinaro is Radiology Consultant and Head of the Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Unit at the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital and Research Institute in Rome. He’s skilled in performing advanced cardiac imaging in children with congenital heart disease and cardiomyopathies. He is formally involved in the Grown Up Congenital Heart disease project at Policlinico Gemelli, Catholic University in Rome. He recently participated to some European Research Projects (i.e. MD Paedigree, Cardioproof, MyHealthMyData) and he’s currently Project Manager for Institutional Strategic Plan on 3D virtual modeling and printing. Author and Coauthor of several pubmed indexed publications, he is full member of some national and international diagnostic imaging societies (SIRM, ESR, ESPR, SCMR, ESC)
Luca Tesauro
Luca Tesauro started working at Giffoni Film Festival on 2014, one of the most famous events for kids and families in the world. In 2014 he launched a new department focused on innovation. In January 2015 he founded the company Giffoni Innovation Hub srl, where he is Chairman and CEO. He created the Giffoni Dream Team, a deep training workshop of open innovation for students aged 18-28 years with the aim to invent new products and solutions to improve the lives of children, young people and families. Furthermore he developed different training programs for kids (aged 3-12) in coding, videogames, artificial intelligence and in the right use of new technologies. In 2017 he became member and pledger of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition of the European Commission. In 2018 he received the Sos Telefono Azzurro award for his commitment to children’s life. In 2019 he received the Rome Business School “Innovation Award”. He constantly collaborates with universities, governments, foundations and private companies creating new digital projects and connecting young talents with startups and big corporates.
Alberto Eugenio Tozzi
Dr Alberto Tozzi is a paediatrician and an epidemiologist with experience in vaccines and epidemiology of transmissible diseases.
He has worked as a researcher with the Italian National Health Institute for more than 15 years, participating and coordinating several projects concerning the prevention and surveillance of infectious diseases.
In 2004 Dr Tozzi moved to the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, where he continued to work in vaccine preventable diseases and started developing projects on eHealth and digital medicine.
Dr Tozzi is currently Chief Innovation Officer and Head of the Multifactorial and Complex Diseases Research Area.
He represents the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in the International Society for Paediatric Innovation, collaborates with the WHO Vaccine Safety Network, and he is collaborating with several international organizations with experience in digital medicine and digital health for promoting innovation in pediatrics
Stefano Vella
Since 1996, as Member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society [IAS] and subsequently as IAS President (2000-2002), he actively worked towards promoting access to treatment and care in the South of the World . Scientific advisor of the Italian Cooperation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in different African countries, he is involved in the setting of specific operational and implementation programs.
Member of Technical Review Panel (TRP) of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), he acquired an extensive experience in the evaluation of country programs to fight poverty-related diseases. Dr. Vella is Member of the Program Committee of the 7° Framework Research Program of the European Commission (DG – Research, Health) and member of the Core Group of the Italian Delegation to Horizon 2020 (Health Research).He has been the Director of Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutic Research at ISS (2003-2016). In this position he conducted studies on therapeutics of major human disease areas.
In January 2017, Dr Vella was appointed Director of the Italian Center for Global Health at the National Institute of Health, whose mission is to fight health inequalities worldwide through research, education and advocacy.
Tony Young, PhD, FRCS
Professor Tony Young is a surgeon and in 2014 he was appointed as National Clinical Director for Innovation at NHS England. Here he provides clinical leadership and support in delivering improved health outcomes in England and drives the uptake of proven innovations across the NHS, promotes economic growth through innovation and helps make the NHS the go-to place on the planet for medical innovation.
Leanne West
Leanne West, MS, is a Principal Research Scientist and the Chief Engineer of Pediatric Technologies for Georgia Tech. As Chief Engineer, she coordinates research activities related to pediatrics across campus and serves as the technical liaison for the partnership with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She is also the President of the non-profit, the International Children’s Advisory Network, which focuses on patient voice in healthcare. Her research focuses on mobile and wireless health system and sensor development, user interfaces, system integration, and diagnostic devices. Ms. West has seen her invention of a wireless personal captioning system installed at commercial venues through her start-up Intelligent Access, LLC. She has another wearable system for identifying specific dog behaviors that has also reached the commercial market. She has received the following awards: Woman of the Year by Women in Technology in 2014, Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award in 2014, GTRI Innovative Research Award team member in 2014, and the Optical Society’s 2012 Paul Forman Engineering Excellence Award team member. She was appointed to the board of the Georgia Technology Authority by the Georgia Speaker of the House, David Ralston. She was named one of Georgia’s “40 Under 40” by Georgia Trend magazine in 2004, and she was selected for the 2008 class of Leadership Georgia. Ms. West is an active participant at her organization. She was the GT Chair for the Georgia Charitable Campaign and was twice elected Chair of the Georgia Tech Executive Board, the faculty governance body of Georgia Tech.
Danny Weissberg
Danny Weissberg is an executive and serial entrepreneur with international experience in the healthcare AI and voice technology sectors, and proven ability to accelerate business and technology innovations from concept to commercialisation. Mr. Weissberg draws on his background in sophisticated technology development and delivery of digital health solutions to drive startup growth. Key areas of expertise include: strategic collaborations with multinational corporations (Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom, IBM, WeWork and Amazon); grant and equity fundraising; leadership of multi-disciplinary, international teams in complex technology projects; due diligence, market opportunity assessments, and project monitoring; contract negotiation; identifying and leveraging new business opportunities.
Mr. Weissberg is a Coordinator of Horizon 2020 projects including SME Instrument Phases I and II, and an awardee of over €4M in non-dilutive funding, and €15M in total funding including Microsoft and Amazon. A 2018 Global Good Fund Fellow, he is a recognized lecturer and guest speaker on grant and equity fundraising and international business acceleration. He has served as evaluator for and mentor of early stage startups in several social impact incubator and accelerator programs, including the 8200 Impact Accelerator, “Hakaveret” Social Program, and the A3i Social Accelerator. Since 2012, he is the Chief Executive Officer of Voiceitt, a venture-backed digital health startup employing AI to develop speech recognition algorithms that recognize and translate impaired speech patterns.
Dorothy Whittick
IBM Healthcare CoC Executive Consultant (Certified) GBS
Member IBM Industry Academy
Dorothy Whittick is a Certified Executive Consultant in the IBM Global Business Services Healthcare and a member of the IBM Industry Academy.
She has many years of eHealth Strategy and Business transformation consulting experience with healthcare organizations around the world. She has managed several complex eHealth engagements, and has developed innovative strategies and frameworks to help transform health systems. Dorothy has led national and jurisdictional Business Transformation and eHealth initiatives such as National strategies, Digital Health and Digital Hospital, Value Assessments, Governance Models, Customer Relationship Management, Integration of Health and Wellness Services, Change Management, the Interoperable Electronic Health Record, Identity Management, Preventive Oncology Information Systems, Client Registry, Privacy Impact and Diagnostic Imaging.
These projects typically involve engaging hundreds of clinical, executive, informatics and technology stakeholders, working towards a common patient centric vision and strategy to realize the vision. Dorothy has worked with health care clients, at national, regional and facility levels, in Canada, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and many Others. She has also worked extensively in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in government and health care organizations, most notably in the areas of proactive engagement of citizens for Health and Wellness and Integrated Care Delivery models.
Dawn Wolff
Chief Strategy Officer
As the Chief Strategy Officer for Children’s Mercy Kansas City, Dawn Wolff is responsible for leading the enterprise Strategy, Planning and Business Analysis, Strategic Analytics, and Community Health Initiatives. Dawn and her team lead enterprise initiative efforts to develop new and/or expanded programs and services that are aligned with the Hospital’s strategic priorities. She developed and has leadership oversight for the Center for Pediatric Innovation which is entrusted with embedding a culture of innovation and advancing innovation initiatives created at Children’s Mercy. Dawn serves as President of the International Society of Pediatric Innovation (iSPI) where she plays a convener for other children’s hospitals and innovators who want to advance pediatric health. Most importantly, she is a proud mother of two little girls who inspire her every day to create positive change in kid’s health.
