How can healthcare and life sciences continue to improve people’s lives? This question and more will be the focus during a week-long programme on the UK Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai between 26th and 30th January 2022.
‘In the Future, How will we Thrive?’ will see health experts come together at a hybrid event combining in-person and virtual speakers to explore how healthcare and the life sciences will innovate and improve people’s lives. Alongside the socially distanced audience in attendance, the sessions will also be accessible virtually.
The programme will showcase how some of the leaps the UK has taken – from 3D printing of living human cells and tissue, to DNA editing – can help people live longer and healthier lives. It will examine what the healthcare challenges are across the world and how they can be overcome through new ideas, techniques and technologies. Emerging and exciting innovations such as nanotechnologies will also be discussed and how they could revolutionise medicine, diagnosis and recovery and lead to greater interest in studying new technologies here in the UK.
Key speakers during the five-day event are Paul Farmer CBE, chief executive officer of Mind, who will be chairing a summit which will ask how creating a society based around happiness will reduce the burden on future healthcare systems. He’ll be joined by a group of panellists which will include Prof Ann John, professor of medicine at Swansea University for Expo 2020 Dubai’s Health & Wellness Week, starting on 2nd February. Kerstyn Comley and Suzi Godson, co-founders of Expo Live grant winning mental health app MeeToo, will also be running student workshops during the programme.
What the patient journey of the future will look and feel like will form part of another summit, covering ideas such as centralised digital centres and how robotic process automation can allow health professionals to focus on providing care, rather than documenting it. This session will include expert input from Professor George Crooks OBE MBChB FRCP FRCGP, chief executive officer of the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre.
Sessions held on the UK Pavilion and supporting podcasts will tackle subjects including the future of operating theatres, well-being and inclusivity in schools and society and how long we could live for. These discussions will include input from:
- Mike Adams OBE, CEO, Purple
- Dr Karthikeyan Kandan, senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, DMU
- Prof Jim McLaughlin OBE, director of the Centre for Digital Healthcare Technology, Ulster University.
Harjinder Kang, director of healthcare, life Sciences and chemicals directorate at Department for International Trade, says: “The UK has long led the way in healthcare. From 3D printed models allowing surgeons to practice particularly complex procedures to pre-programmed drones collecting blood samples from residents of rural villages, innovation remains at the forefront of the NHS. I’m looking forward to hearing the latest innovative ideas discussed during the programme in January.”
All events will be hosted in the UK Pavilion. The first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region and the largest event ever held in the Arab world, Expo 2020 Dubai will run for six months from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 – bringing 190-plus countries together in a spirit of hope, optimism and shared purpose. Further details of ‘How will we Thrive?’ and the rest of the UK programme will be announced throughout the year as the event grows closer.
