John is currently ranked as the #1 global influencer in digital health and the future of health innovation. His focus is on guiding companies, NGOs, and governments through the dynamics of exponential change in the health / tech marketplaces. His voice is one that helps to define, dissect and deliberate global trends in digital health. He is also a member of the Google Health Advisory Board and a frequent and popular contributor to Fortune, Forbes, Psychology Today and Bloomberg. 

Dr Kieran Walsh is Clinical Director at BMJ. He is the clinical lead of the medical education and clinical decision support resources at BMJ. He has a vast amount of experience in online medical education, clinical decision support, face-to-face delivery of medical education, and both summative and formative assessment. He has experience in using all of these in programmes to strengthen health systems. He is Adjunct Associate Professor in Teaching and Research at Monash University. He has published over 200 papers in the biomedical literature and has written four books on medical education.

On leaving the management consultancy Experian I joined UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis as a senior research fellow. It was there that I made initial contact with Dr Foster, analysing the relationship between geodemography and health outcomes. We were looking at the use of postcode level statistics to standardise hospital mortality rates alongside variables such as age, sex and diagnosis to enable hospitals to be compared with one another. In 2004 I joined Dr Foster as Director of Product Development where I oversaw the company’s development of tools across clinical benchmarking, financial management and health needs mapping. In 2007 I was made Honorary Professor at UCL in the field of Geomatic and Civil Engineering. In 2010 I joined East Kent University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where I am Chief Analytical Officer responsible for informatics, coding and AI, I am also the Chair of the Analytics Board for Kent and Medway.  I am a graduate of the King’s Fund future leaders course and was named in the HSJ Top 50 Innovators in Health 2013. I am the Founder of Beautiful Information, an Analytics consultancy and OpenDataSavesLives, a not for profit research body.

Lee Rickles is a member of the CIO advisory board, a CHIME Certificated Health Chief Information Officer and alumni of the Digital Academy.  

He has three decades transformation and programme management experience.  His first decade focused on UK military aircraft project for the T-45 Goshawk, Sea Harrier, AV-8B and Nimrod.  During the last two decades, he has focused on digital transformation in the NHS, Information Technology services and Business Intelligence for NHS organisations. Lee has also had significant experience in the development of change strategies; digital developments and procurement of Information Technology Services and systems.

He is currently is leading the development of the Yorkshire & Humber Care Record, Digital transformation of Humber Coast & Vale ICS and the CIO of Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust.

Rob is the CMIO for the Royal Free London Innovation and Intelligent Automation team. He is also a National Medical Director’s Fellow working at NHSE. He has a real interest in decision support systems as applied to healthcare and the use of real-world healthcare data as a driver of transformational change. His motivation for the CMIO role is a belief that proper utilisation of existing digital services and adoption of new technologies are crucial to help meet the growing demands on the health service and deliver a future of better care.

Rob studied medicine at the University of Oxford, following which he was appointed as an academic foundation doctor in the North Central and East London deanery.

Dr Ronan Cummins, Director of AI Research at ieso, is a computer scientist specialising in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. A former Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, he is a highly published academic, and has spoken about natural language processing and information retrieval at a number of premier conferences. Joining ieso in 2017, Ronan has led a number of projects within the R&D team focusing on uncovering important clinical events within ieso’s unique conversational dataset in order to improve the treatment of mental health conditions.

Sigal Hachlili Dwyer –  Director of AI, Data & Digital Innovation at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s Health Partners and the AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare. 

Sigal aims to harness rich health analytics, data science, digital innovation and cutting-edge technology to develop scalable solutions that enhance healthcare outcomes for patients, families and staff across the NHS.

Sigal has over 20 years’ experience in roles at national and international organisations across digital, AI and data disciplines – delivering business transformation and growth, innovation and service delivery. She is passionate about helping organisations to harness digital and data to achieve their goals for future sustainability, climate positive, health and social value. 

Vishnu Chandrabalan is a Consultant Surgeon and Head of Data Science at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTH). He has worked in the NHS for 2 decades gathering a wealth of experience both as a clinician and as a technology enthusiast. Having learnt BASIC (and a little COBOL and Fortran) in the summer of 1991, he has retained a passion for technology in general and programming in particular. He has focussed his recent efforts as lead architect on building a cloud-native, scalable, collaborative, data analytics platform at LTH. He has co-led Lancashire and South Cumbria in a successful £10m bid for a NW Secure Data Environment in a 3-ICS coalition. He also leads LTH’s large-scale data harmonisation into OMOP with support from HDRUK and has a strong interest in capacity-building within the NHS for data science, ML and AI. He is most comfortable writing buggy code in Python and has not enjoyed writing this short biography in the third-person.

Dr. Amrita Kumar has been recently named 2020 Top 50 Innovator in UK for leading innovation within the NHS transforming healthcare and research with the use if AI technology. She was appointed as a substantive Consultant Radiologist at Frimley Health in 2013 with a subspecialist interest in breast cancer screening.

She has a keen interest in Artificial Intelligence and has set up trust wide research collaboration to implement a digital enabled AI infrastructure, as well as implement novel AI software for improved detection of cancer.

Ultimately, her aim is to have a positive social impact on cancer screening policy and practice within the NHS integrated with AI, working in conjunction with various stakeholders with a mission statement of patient-focused healthcare. She has also been appointed at the British Institute of Radiology National Clinical Intelligence & Informatics Committee to look at the national integration and implementation of AI into clinical practice.

Vineet works as a Senior Clinical Fellow in Orthopaedics at Luton & Dunstable NHS University Hospital, UK. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His qualification included MBBS. MS(Trauma)  FRCS(Orth), MD (Ortho Research.) UCL.

He has been instrumental in creating the website whichorthopaedicimplant.com which will perform Automated Identification of Make & Model (Brand) of Orthopaedic Implants using AI. He is also creating Worlds first Open-source benchmark X-ray dataset of all globally used Orthopaedic implants. 

He has done a fellowship in Limb reconstruction at the St Georges NHS University Hospital, London and a second in Management of Complex trauma at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He was awarded a MD (Bio-Med Eng.) at IOMS, UCL in 2018 and published work on formation of Extra cortical Bone to enhance Osteointegration of endoprosthesis. 

Rhodri Davies is a cardiologist and associate clinical professor of machine learning and cardiac imaging at University College London, Barts Heart Centre, and University Hospital of Wales. Rhodri’s background is in computer science and having completed his PhD in machine learning, he completed clinical training in cardiology, with subspecialist interests in cardiac MR and echocardiography. His research aims to use advanced machine learning techniques to improve the interpretation of cardiac imaging and deploy these methods in routine clinical care.

Ana Ribeiro completed her degree in Nuclear Medicine (BSc (Hons)) at the ESS Porto in Portugal, followed by a PgDip and MRes at City University of London and is currently undertaking a PhD at Erasmus MC. Her previous research addressed patients’ awareness and perception of radiation exposure during bone and PET/CT scanning. This led to a number of articles and presentations at International conferences. She has also contributed to other imaging research studies in the fields of Nuclear Medicine and Radiology. Ana’s current research is looking at understanding patients and healthcare professionals’ views on independent patient access to their imaging records – how access to a digital platform could better support and engage patients to become active users of digital health services – in line with changes to current patient record systems across the UK and Internationally.

As Transformation lead at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Imaging Hub, together with the two directors, she oversees a diverse team together with the Hub research portfolio and provides regulatory and governance management to the Hub data driven projects in the field of imaging and AI.

Andrew is lead healthcare partner at AlbionVC, a UK-focused venture capital investor managing approximately £1bn. A former neurosurgeon, he focuses on medical technologies and technology-enabled services to the healthcare and life-science sectors. He has invested in sectors ranging from digital health, diagnostics and imaging, machine learning applications and therapeutics, including cell and gene therapies. Prior to joining Albion he specialised in healthcare strategy at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Alexander is a research fellow currently completing his PhD in the evaluation and integration of AI in healthcare as part of the COLO-SPEED colorectal cancer research network. He is also a colorectal surgery registrar as well as an Army Reserve Medical Officer with clinical interests in advanced endoscopy and surgery in remote, rural, and austere environments, as well as broader interests in process efficiency and ergonomics. He is keen to explore the ways in which it is possible to use AI to improve workflows, outcomes, and safety, and simplify the complex wherever possible.

Mr Carlon Fitzpatrick MD BSc PG Cert MRCS (Eng)

NHS Clinical Entrepreneur

Co-founder and Business Development Director, Encode Health

Carlon Fitzpatrick is a Trauma and Orthopaedic surgeon with a specialist interest in medical and surgical devices. Carlon read Medicine at St George’s University, Grenada West Indies, graduating as a Gold Honour Humanism Society member in 2010. Carlon then worked for DepuySynthes (Johnson and Johnson) Orthopaedics and biomaterials from 2010-2014 winning national sales awards in 2012 and 2013.  He developed specialist knowledge in these areas, driving uptake and adoption of Trauma innovation and biomaterials for use in Trauma Surgery. Carlon is passionate about improving patient safety and setting new standards for tracking and tracing of medical devices within the healthcare market. 

Kanwal is the founder of Metalynx, a startup building software for the assessment of healthcare AI products. Kanwal has been working in medical imaging since finishing her PhD in 2007, first in developing novel algorithms then in commercialising these through industry and startups. She founded Metalynx with the aim of accelerating adoption of safe and robust AI, using her understanding the technical challenges involved in development – and how to test for these. Metalynx allows non-technical healthcare providers to rapidly evaluate and test radiology AI products in an independent manner, helping buyers to identify products that offer greatest clinical benefit.

Dr Sarah Blake is a cardiology registrar at St Thomas’ Hospital, specialising in congenital heart disease and cardiac imaging. She completed her medical training in Bristol in 2012 and obtained a PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2020. She is the Women in Cardiology Representative for the BJCA and is one of the first cohort of Clinical AI fellows, where she is deploying AI software to aid the interpretation of medical imaging. 

Kiran Patel is Chief Medical Officer, Deputy CEO and Consultant cardiologist at University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire. He came to that role in 2019 after 6 years as Medical Director for NHS England (West Midlands). He graduated from Kings College, Cambridge University in 1993 and has been a practising Consultant Cardiologist 2005 and continues to practice despite a busy managerial role. He was appointed an Honorary Professor at Warwick and Coventry Universities in 2018. He was also clinical lead for the Coventry and Warwickshire ICS (2019-22).

As a senior NHS leader he has managed significant transformational change not only in cardiac services but as Medical Director for the West Midlands (2014-19), Clinical Director at West Midlands Strategic Health authority (2009-11) and Medical Director for West Mercia PCT Cluster (2011-13).

In the voluntary sector, he has been Chair of trustees to the South Asian Health Foundation charity (which he founded in 1999) since inception. He was also a trustee for 3 terms at the UK Health forum from 2003-12. He is a mentor for the Social Mobility Foundation which encourages and mentors students from deprived communities into the healthcare sector and further education.

In healthcare policy and strategy, he has worked with NICE, the Royal Colleges and the Department of Health for over two decades. He has published papers and books and lectured widely on a national and international scale, not only in the field of cardiology, but more widely on social determinants and healthcare systems and strategy. Such expertise gleaned from both the NHS and voluntary sectors, led to him advising the Public Health Foundation of India on developing healthcare systems in 2009-10 and he also co-authored the UK Ministerial briefing for the UN Summit on non communicable disease in 2011. He served 9 years as a Non Executive Director on the board of the BMJ group to drive globalisation of education and training to achieve its mission of a healthier world (2012-2021). As part of that global health system work he recently advised the Thai government and is currently advising the Indonesian government on health system strengthening. He was recognised in the HSJ Top 100 leaders in 2014 and in the HSJ Tope 50 BAME leaders in the same year. In 2022 he led his trust to win the HSJ Health Inequalities and Innovation award for work on reducing inequalities in restoration of NHS services following the pandemic. In 2021 he was recognised at the 37th most influential UK Asian in the GG2 powerlist.

An impressive random fact is that he prescribed the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine outside of a clinical trial on that amazing day of December 8th 2020.

In his spare time, he loves sport – indeed, he has moved from cricket, which he played to a high standard, to football. He holds a season ticket for West Bromwich Albion FC and when not running half-marathons he enjoys attending most WBA home matches with his wife and 4 daughters!

Nick is a board director and leads the digital transformation programme at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust.

He is an engineer by training, having started his career working in Formula 1 for McLaren in digital simulation where he supported Lewis Hamilton to win his first world championship. He worked in operational implementation for 11 years, as a Partner at Newton, working with front line staff to implement new care pathways and care models to improve patient outcomes.

Nick joined UHB in January 2020 and has since worked with clinical teams to deploy innovative care pathways, utilising new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, that improve quality and access to care for the population of Birmingham and Solihull.

Recently implemented projects include: AI powered skin cancer pathway, community diagnostic hub for ophthalmic care, Trust wide digital communication platform, AI enabled radiotherapy planning, synchronous digital diagnostics for urgent care, virtual wards for COPD care, digital otoscopy for ear and nose care, AI for breast screening, platform for collaborative and distributed care.

Sarah Porter has launched 21 b2b and b2c technology products in 11 countries since 1996 and has a renowned reputation for taking ideas from concept to market with subsequent significant growth globally. 

Emerging tech / AI / Medtech / Singularity / existentialism is where her core experience lies and she has over 20 years of commercial experience.

As a board executive for i2i events (parent company The Guardian Media Group / Apax – Ascential – previously Top Right Group) with the specific remit to rapidly grow the business whilst leveraging operational costs and prepare pre IPO. She sat on the i2i mergers and acquisitions committee identifying, analysing and approaching target businesses and accelerated growth by 22% within 12 months.

Achievements include the launch and acquisition of Money2020 – a leading fintech product. This included negotiation, 3 stage due diligence, its subsequent integration, and the long term geo-adaption into a global portfolio worth over $40m. The launch of World Retail Congress in 10 countries, the re-launch of Cannes Lions festival.

Sarah is a regular keynote speaker on start-ups, business and women / equality related issues and is an ambassador for the Royal Marsden where she champions the use of AI tech in oncology advances.

Tamás Petrovics is Co-founder & CEO of the healthtech start-up XUND, based in Vienna with offices in Budapest and London. There, he is responsible for corporate strategy. Tamás is committed to making XUND’s vision of the digital patient journey a reality and represents the company externally. Prior to co-founding XUND, he was a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company. He worked on projects in Europe, America, and Asia. His focus was on restructuring and growth in insurance, pharma, and basic materials. 

Dr Rizwan Malik is a Radiologist at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust. He has clinical interests in Chest and Nuclear Medical Radiology, and in particular, interest in Healthcare Informatics and the potential of AI to support clinicians and patients. Rizwan studied medicine in Cambridge and London before qualifying as a Radiologist and joining the Trust in 2006. He has held a number of increasingly senior roles at the organisation, where he became Divisional Medical Director in 2020, and was, until recently, the regional Clinical Lead for PACS for Greater Manchester. Dr Malik also provides consultancy that advises the NHS and vendors on transformation and innovation, with a focus on imaging and AI.

Ian is actively involved in the NIHR i4i Programme, SBRI Healthcare and now the AI in Health and Care Award along with Medtech SME engagement, managing a portfolio of funded projects and the NIHR Innovation Observatory contract. A DPhil in chemistry led to Ian becoming a Principal Scientist at Kodak European R&D, followed by 9 years at GE Healthcare leading the Discovery portfolio for neurological molecular imaging. Ian is a (co-)inventor on 38 patent applications, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a member of UKRI Peer Review College and the External Review Board for CPI Photonics.

Allison Gardner is an expert in AI and Data Ethics with interests in health technology, algorithmic bias, HCI, diversity and inclusion. Allison works for the AI Multi-agency Advisory Service with NICE addressing cross-regulatory policy. She is an experienced educator and is an (Hon) Senior Research Fellow at Keele University. She co-founded Women Leading in AI and is CEO of AI Aware Ltd. Allison sits on a number of standards committees including ISO/IEC SC42 UK National and CEN-CENELEC JTC21 as a ForHumanity Fellow. Allison is a renowned speaker on AI ethics, with several media appearances including as a TEDx speaker.

Blaise Thomson is the founder and CEO of Bitfount, a federated machine learning and analytics platform. He was the founder and CEO of VocalIQ, which he sold to Apple in 2015, subsequently leading their Cambridge, UK engineering office and holding the role of Chief Architect for Siri Understanding. Blaise holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, where he was also a Research Fellow, and is an Honorary Fellow at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Dr Indra Joshi has a unique portfolio of experience spanning data/AI strategy and implementation, whilst remaining true to her professional training as an emergency medic.  She is currently working across the global health and life sciences portfolio of Palantir Technologies to enable better use of data to impact health and care. 

Dr. Joshi created the NHS AI Lab which led to the development and deployment of over 80 AI technologies into UK health and care, whilst determining the right ethical guidance and regulations to protect patients. As a former member of the World Health Organization Digital Health Technical Advisory Group, she was one of the of 20 globally renowned experts whose experience and knowledge are leveraged to support digital health programs and policy in the global healthcare ecosystem. 

Alongside she is an associate editor for BMJ Leader, a Founding Member of One HealthTech – a volunteer network which exists to drive better equality, diversity and accessibility in health innovation; and most importantly a mum to two wonderful little munchkins.