Speakers

Cornel Amariei is a Romanian born inventor, speaker, and entrepreneur, known for founding .lumen, the company building Pedestrian Autonomous Driving, first showcased in the Glasses for the Blind. Cornel was born in a family of people with disabilities. He understood from a young age how technology can impact their life. And after a career as Head of Innovation in one of the largest automotive companies in the world, Cornel started .lumen to empower people with disabilities. Now, .lumen builds the most advanced assistive technology in the world, empowering blind people to have mobility independence.   For his work, Cornel was recognized as the first Romanian in Forbes U30 Europe, JCI’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World, and a Laureate in the Global Business Hall of Fame by Junior Achievement, awards shared with personalities such as JFK, Elvis Presley, or Levi Strauss.

Arianna Arienzo is the CEO and Co-Founder of VoiceMed, a digital health company pioneering the use of AI-powered vocal biomarkers to make respiratory health assessment more accessible and scalable.

Arianna has been working in digital health since 2020, combining her leadership role at VoiceMed with academic activities at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where she has been a contract professor and lecturer since 2022 and, since 2026, coordinator of the Master's programme in Entrepreneurship in Sanità (Healthcare Entrepreneurship).

Before entering the healthcare sector, she built her career in technology and open innovation, working in Silicon Valley in USA, at Accenture in Italy, and on social innovation and impact projects in Ecuador. Coming from a family of doctors, her transition into digital health was inspired by the ambition to extend the impact of healthcare beyond what an individual physician can achieve through clinical practice, using technology to reach and support patients at scale.

In 2021, she founded VoiceMed Italia, leading the company from initial problem identification and concept development to 7 clinical studies, multiple technology proofs of concept, and 3 customer pilots, including a strategic collaboration with Chiesi Farmaceutici involving both a pilot and a commercial agreement. Under her leadership, VoiceMed has secured €2 million in funding.

Today, VoiceMed is developing two AI-based respiratory solutions, including VoiceMed Check, which uses smartphone recordings of breathing and voice to help identify individuals who may be at risk of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Arianna is now leading the company's journey towards CE marking and European market entry, with an initial focus on Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain.

Arianna is a Fulbright alumna, Forbes Under 30 honoree, and TEDx speaker, passionate about translating technological innovation into accessible healthcare solutions that can positively impact patients' lives.

Biotech entrepreneur focused on bringing new medicines to patients and strengthening Europe’s biotech ecosystem. He co‑founded PhagoMed Biopharma and led it as Co‑CEO through its acquisition by BioNTech, where he then co‑led the Austrian R&D hub and brought new drug candidates into the clinic. Alexander is now building his new venture Sameric Bio to close Europe’s translation gap by advancing promising biology to clinical proof‑of‑concept. He also invests in early‑stage health and deep‑tech companies through LANA Ventures and mentors life science ventures via the Creative Destruction Lab.

Olivia Burns is the Healthtech Startup Navigator at Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, where she leads the Propel programme, supporting healthtech startups through market entry, scaling, and expansion within the UK healthcare system. She works at the intersection of innovation, commercial strategy, and system adoption, enabling companies to successfully navigate NHS pathways and deliver scalable impact.

She is the founder of Hypoplas, a medical design company focused on dignity-led, sustainable innovation in patient care, and was selected for the inaugural NHS Patient Entrepreneur Programme. Born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Olivia has undergone multiple surgeries, including four pioneering open-heart procedures, informing her pragmatic, systems-aware approach to healthcare innovation.

Utilising her lived experience and expertise in health innovation, she founded the UK’s national adult Fontan innovation network, bringing together key stakeholders across the congenital heart community to shape the future of post-Fontan care within the NHS.

Olivia holds an MBA in Health from UCL’s Global Business School for Health, where she holds the Future Leaders Scholarship. She has been recognised with accolades including Medilink’s One to Watch, Innovate UK’s Unlocking Potential, and TiE Global Women UK Finalist, and serves on the United Kingdom Digital Health and Care Innovation Committee.

Olivia regularly contributes to national healthcare innovation discourse through speaking engagements at HETT North and BMJ Future Health, appearances on the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons podcast, the Healthtech podcast and delivered an TEDXNHS talk

Hugo R. Caires, PhD, is CEO and Co-founder of MYCancer, a Madeira-based startup developing bone-marrow-on-chip avatars to study how blood-cancer cells respond to different therapies outside the body, with the long-term goal of supporting personalized treatment decisions. A scientist-turned-entrepreneur, Hugo holds a PhD from the University of Porto, has authored 20 peer-reviewed papers with more than 7,000 citations, and combines expertise in tissue engineering, organ-on-chip systems and haematological oncology. After leading a nationally-funded academic research project in acute myeloid leukaemia, he took MYLeukaemia work through EP PerMed Venture Creator and EIT Jumpstarter 2025, winning first place in Healthcare and the Outermost Regions prize before incorporating MYCancer in late 2025. Within its first year, MYCancer reached the Startup World Cup Portugal Top 10, won the HealthQ UP Impact Award and became Overall Winner of EU InnoMedCatalyst, advancing Hugo's mission to translate organ-on-chip science into scalable blood-cancer innovation from Madeira, one of the EU's Outermost Regions.

Alfons Carnicero is an entrepreneur from Barcelona focused on using technology to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities. He holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering, specialising in Biomedical Engineering, from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, as well as executive training in entrepreneurship from Cambridge Judge Business School, EADA and ISDI.

His career began at Implantcast GmbH, a joint implant manufacturer, and Institut Guttmann, a neurorehabilitation hospital. In 2018, he co-founded ABLE Human Motion, a healthcare start-up working to make exoskeleton technology more accessible.

Alfons has been recognised as an Innovator Under 35 Europe by MIT Technology Review and as a “Joven Relevante” by Círculo Ecuestre. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the International Industry Society for Advanced Rehabilitation Technology (IISART).

Dr Moredreck Chibi is an international public health innovation expert currently leading strategic innovation initiatives at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. He has coordinated the development of the region’s Strategy for Harnessing Innovation for Public Health 2025–2030, as well as its regional innovation agenda.

Previously, he served as Regional Focal Point for Science and Innovation at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, where he contributed to Africa’s first regional strategy for scaling health innovations and chaired a UN coalition advancing the Sustainable Development Goals through science and digital transformation.

With more than 20 years of experience across WHO regional offices and headquarters, his work focuses on scaling health innovation, strengthening innovation ecosystems and fostering international collaboration. He holds a PhD in Medical Biosciences, an Executive MBA in Innovation Management and an MPH from Imperial College London.

Irina Cleemput is Scientific Director and Senior Health Economist at the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE). Her main areas of expertise are Health Technology Assessment, research on drug reimbursement decision making processes, patient and public involvement in health policy research. Irina was involved in several national and international studies on patient-centred decision-making in healthcare policy. She is the inspirer of the NEED initiative (Needs Examination, Evaluation and Dissemination), that focusses on the identification and measurement of patient and societal unmet health-related needs, as one of the building blocks for a more needs-driven healthcare innovation and policy. Irina represents KCE in the HTA Coordination Group, the Heads of HTA Agencies Group, and in the General Assembly of the International Horizon Scanning Initiative (IHSI) and Beneluxa. Finally, she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA).

Pauline Cohen is a European and International Project Manager at the Health Data Hub (HDH), where she leads the EU-funded SHAIPED project (Digital Europe Programme). She orchestrates cross-border collaboration among 30 partners across 11 Member States to facilitate access to real-world data for AI-based medical devices, ensuring compliance with evolving regulations like the EHDS, AI Act, and MDR. She is also actively involved in EHDS implementation activities.

Before joining HDH in 2025, she spent nearly five years as an IQVIA consultant, driving digital and business transformation for leading pharmaceutical companies. Her background also includes hospital supply chain engineering and medical knowledge graph modeling for an e-health startup.

She holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from École des Mines de Saint-Étienne and a Specialized Master’s in Digital Transformation, Marketing and Strategy from EM Lyon Business School

Fabrizio Conicella is today VP Open Innovation & Competence of Chiesi Farmaceutici. He covered the CEO position in Life Science District, a Life Science Venture builder and he was European and International Affairs manager of Cluster ER Health , General Manager of OpenZone and Zcube, President Ephoran-MIS,President Parkinsoncare and General Manager of Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero, offering also strategic expertise to different startups and organizations. Over the years he has gained experience in supporting organizations and companies in general management, in defining and implementing the R&D and innovation and open innovation strategies, in innovating business model and growth strategies, in the implementation of business development activities, in defining corporate strategies and in evaluating projects and business plans. He is also university and MBA professor in Innovation management.

Prof. Dinnyes has been working on embryology, cloning and stem cell biology since 1985 in leading institutions in US, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand, China, UK, The Netherlands. In 2000 joined the „Dolly cloning team” team in Roslin Institute, UK as team leader. He is full professor at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He is leading BioTalentum Ltd (est.2005) focusing on hiPSC-based rare diseases modelling, in vitro disease modelling and toxicology using 2D, 3D and organ-on-a-chip new approach methodologies. He is Facilitation Group acting lead for IPCEI Health Med4Cure with a project for clinical translation of hiPSC-based Type-1 diabetes regenerative therapy and xeno-heart transplantation to cure cardiac failure. 

Dr Hani Fares is a public health physician with over 20 years of international experience in health systems, humanitarian response, and refugee and migrant health. He has worked with WHO, UNHCR and Médecins Sans Frontières across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

He currently directs prevention, research and innovation in mental health at Fondation ARHM in France. He also collaborates with WHO/Europe through its Public Health Innovation Platform, on Emerging Health Challenges, with a particular focus on mental health.

Combining field experience, health economics and strategic leadership, his work focuses on translating public-health challenges into practical, equitable and sustainable solutions through innovation, partnerships and health-system development.

Joan Fibla is a healthcare innovation professional with a multidisciplinary background, holding a BSc in Microbiology and an MSc in Health Economics, with experience spanning healthcare innovation, business development, and health technology assessment (HTA). He specializes in accelerating health technology development towards market access in collaboration with hospitals, startups, industry partners, investors, and public organizations.

He currently works at Clinic Barcelona University Hospital as an HTA Scientist and has contributed to the EDiHTA framework’s scientific research and the design and digitalisation of the EDiHTA toolkit. He is a member of Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) and BioExpert Network. 

Ana Isabel González-González, MD, PhD, is Head of Innovation Promotion and Internationalisation of Health Research at the Directorate-General for Research and Teaching of the Regional Ministry of Health of Madrid. She is also the EIT Health Master Contact for the Madrid Health Service (SERMAS) and its Legal Entity Appointed Representative (LEAR) for Horizon Europe.

A family physician and senior researcher, she has extensive experience in European collaborative research, health services research and innovation. Her work focuses on strengthening the participation of the Madrid health system in European programmes, fostering public–private collaboration and supporting the development and implementation of innovative solutions.

Her areas of interest include health data, digital transformation, value-based healthcare, multimorbidity and medication management, with a strong focus on translating research and innovation into meaningful impact for healthcare systems and patients.

Stefaan HERMANS is Director Competitiveness, Talent Mobility and International Cooperation in the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission. He was previously Director of Policy Strategy and Evaluation in the same DG. He was also Head of Cabinet of the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen. Before that, he held a wide range of posts in other DGs, including Head of the ‘Universities and Researchers’, ‘Skills’, and ‘Reflective Societies’ Units in DG Research and Innovation, and Secretary of the Employment Committee of the European Union. He also lectures on EU Affairs at the KU Leuven.

Kathrin Hetz is a public health professional who has been working with the World Health Organization since 2020. Her current work at the WHO Regional Office for Europe focuses on harnessing innovation to address public health challenges. She currently coordinates the WHO/Europe Public Health Innovation Platform, supporting efforts to close the innovation implementation gap, bridging the divide between promising solutions and their adoption in public health systems. Through its mission-driven approach, the Platform convenes diverse stakeholders to identify innovations addressing priority public health needs, understand practical pathways to implementation and scale, and foster collaboration across sectors. 

Kathrin has worked across WHO regions, including assignments in Fiji and the Republic of Korea, gaining extensive international experience in public health policy and programme development. Her work has focused on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases and childhood obesity, the commercial determinants of health, including a strong focus on policies to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods to children, and the promotion of healthy and sustainable food systems. Across these areas, she has contributed to evidence-informed approaches that address complex public health challenges and support the development of healthier environments and more effective public health action.

Dr. rer. medic. h. c. Helmut Hildebrandt is CEO of OptiMedis AG. His focus is on the development and man agement of healthcare regions and regional care interventions. From 2005 to 2018, for example, he was Man aging Director of Gesundes Kinzigtal GmbH, which is responsible for integrated care in the Ortenau district of Baden-Württemberg, in addition to his role on the Executive Board of OptiMedis AG. He is also Managing Director of Gesunder Werra-Meißner-Kreis GmbH in North Hesse. As co-chair of the Heinrich Boell Foundation’s Health Policy Commission, Helmut Hildebrandt contributed to the recommendations published in 2013 for reforming the current incentive and remuneration system in the direction of quality and efficiency. He served for three terms on the board of the International Foundation for Integrated Care and for more than ten years on the board of the German Managed Care Association, working to optimize incentives for better health outcomes for patients, both nationally and internationally. He was also a board member of the German Network of Health-Promoting Hospitals and received the 2022 Forward Thinker Award from the Initiative Gesundheitswirtschaft, the B. Braun Foundation and Bibliomed-Verlag. The pharmacist and health scientist has many years of experience in qualitative research and conceptual work in health promotion and organizational development. He has worked for the World Health Organization and has advised hospitals, health insurance companies, associations, companies and institutions in the healthcare industry for over 40 years on organization, strategy and system development, including as a restructuring manager in the hospital sector.

Noora Hujala (Pharm, MSc, EMBA) is the CEO and Co-founder of Solid IO, a University of Helsinki spinout developing a functional precision medicine platform to help personalize cancer treatment. She brings nearly 30 years of experience across the healthcare ecosystem, spanning clinical work, commercial leadership, growth and business transformation. Driven by a mission to improve how patients are treated at scale, she co-founded Solid IO with her scientific co-founders to expand patient access to effective cancer treatments.

Markus Kalliola is a Programme Director in the Future well-being solutions programme at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra. He is the co-ordinator of the Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space 2 (TEHDAS2) and Value from Nordic health data (VALO) projects. Both projects aim for the successful implementation of the European Health Data Space regulation.

Prior to Sitra, Mr Kalliola worked in the European Commission’s DG Sante where he was responsible for the cross-border healthcare IT projects. He has vast experience in data economy and in the next years he will work towards a healthier and fairer data economy for Europe.

Mr Kalliola holds a position of trust in multiple advisory boards linked to digital health.

Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite is a Portuguese-Canadian medical doctor trained in infectious diseases with extensive experience in global health, health systems and science-based policymaking. Before his current role as CEO of 'HealthAI - The Global Agency for Responsible AI in Health' in Geneva, Ricardo served four terms as a Member of Parliament in Portugal, serving on both the health and foreign affairs committees.

Ricardo is a city councilor in Sintra and previously served as Deputy Mayor of Cascais. He is the founder and President of the 'UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health,' a network of current and former policymakers from 110 countries. With more than 15 years of academic experience, he is Chair of the Board of the Harvard-Charité Global Health Policy Lab, based in Berlin, and Chair of the Centre for Global Health at NOVA University Information Management and Data Science School in Lisbon. He completed postgraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Medical School. Previously, Dr. Baptista Leite worked as a practicing physician in the Portuguese National Health Service for several years, including an internship at the World Health Organization.

More recently, he served as a medical volunteer for over a year during the COVID pandemic at his hometown hospital in Portugal, and as part of a humanitarian mission at the Lviv Regional Hospital in Ukraine during the first summer after the start of the war.

In 2024, he was the first leader from Portugal to be selected for the Obama Foundation Leaders program. In 2025, Ricardo joined the UK’s National Commission on the Regulation of AI in Healthcare as a founding member.

Lucia Orozco Lopez is a women's health innovation and strategy advisor, Founder of FemTech Spain and Co-Founder of Orvela Partners. With over 10 years of experience in business strategy, finance and international markets, including at Amazon and AWS, she works with startups, investors and organisations to identify market opportunities, develop growth strategies and accelerate women's health innovation. Her work bridges market intelligence, investment and commercial strategy, with a focus on turning research and innovation into real-world impact.

Fruzsina Mezei, PhD is a health economist and health policy expert at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome, specialising in health technology assessment (HTA) and the adoption of digital health and medical technologies in health systems. Her work centres on harmonising assessment criteria for digital health technologies (DHTs) across Europe: she coordinated the European DMD Taskforce on behalf of EIT Health and currently contributes to the EDiHTA project. She also designs educational programmes and bootcamps, and advises and mentors technology developers on market access pathways across several countries. In 2022 she was elected to the presidential board of the Hungarian Health Economics Society, with a mandate to bring international digital health regulatory practice into the Hungarian setting. She holds a degree from Durham University, an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from Eötvös Loránd University, and a PhD in innovation management.

Laia Pascual is Investment Director at Ship2B Ventures, an impact VC based in Barcelona, where she leads investments in healthy ageing. She backs seed and Series A companies across healthcare, social care and financial health for older adults, from biotech and medtech to digital health and new business models, and sits on the boards of portfolio companies. She holds a PhD in Immunology and an Executive MBA, and her career spans biotech startup operations, accelerator programmes and venture capital. Women’s health is where her two interests meet. Laia explores women's health topics in a weekly, research-backed LinkedIn series, and is keen to see more founders and investors take on this gap.

Elena de la Poza Plaza has been Vice-Rector for Employment, Lifelong Learning and Languages at the Polytechnic University of Valencia since 1st March 2025. She has been a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences at the Polytechnic University of Valencia since 2018 and has held the title of Full Professor since 2024. She has been recognised for three six-year periods of research and three five-year periods of teaching. In addition, she is the Academic Director of the Master’s Degree in Continuing Education in Real Estate Sciences, accredited by the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) and taught at the UPV since 2001. She has published more than 50 articles in scientific journals indexed in prestigious international databases and has led and participated in projects funded by the European Union from 2016 to the present. She has undertaken teaching and research placements at internationally recognised universities: the University of North Carolina, the University of Tennessee, the University of Padua, the University of Panama and the Politecnico di Milano.

Prof. Prokosch was Professor of Medical Informatics at Münster University from 1995 until 2003 and Endowed Chair of Medical Informatics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg from 2003 until 2025. Until 2024 he was also responsible as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the operational and strategic IT management/planning of Erlangen University Hospital. In 2025 he retired from his university (hospital) positions, but is still active as consultant for medical informatics.

While his research focus in earlier years was on electronic patient records and personal electronic health records as well as medical decision making, since about 2008 he has initiated first projects to support clinical and translational research in 2007. Within the large German funding program (the Medical Informatics Initiative: 2016-2026) Prof. Prokosch leads the MIRACUM consortium (one of the four funded consortia) with ten German university hospitals, one none-academic hospital, two universities of applied sciences and one industrial partner. The major aim of this project was to integrate and harmonize the data silos, which were created in the last decade within the German university hospitals and leverage this data for Germany-wide real world data sharing and analysis projects. His team was responsible for the development of the German Portal for Medical Research Data. Prof. Prokosch is a former member of the Commission of IT-Infrastructures of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Science Foundation) and a former member of the board of directors of the TMF (Technology, Methods, and Infrastructure for Networked Medical Research). He is the current president of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS e.V.) and International Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

Sofía Moreno-Pérez is a Telecommunications Engineer and Executive MBA graduate who has served as Director of VALDE Innova since 2008. She specialises in Innovation Procurement, bringing a practical, demand-side perspective to the design and implementation of innovative public procurement processes.

She has more than ten years of experience in the field, including roles in the STOPandGO and award-winning RITMOCORE projects, and has coordinated procurer activities in the PCP projects ROSIA, TIQUE and CRANE.

Until recently, she was a partner and Innovation Procurement Expert at HIPPS, where she contributed to the development of support services for health-sector procurers and innovation providers. Her work focuses on aligning buyer needs with innovative solutions and strengthening the capacity of public organisations to adopt innovation effectively.

Teresa Riesgo has served as Secretary General for Innovation at the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, as well as President of the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI), since January 2020. She previously held the position of Director General for Research, Development and Innovation from July 2018. She holds a Master's degree and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), where she is Full Professor of Electronics since 2003. Throughout her academic career, she has 

participated in more than 60 research projects—many of them international and in collaboration with industry—and has published over 200 scientific documents. 

With more than 25 years of experience in academia, research, and innovation, she assumed the role of Director General at the Ministry, where she is currently responsible for innovation policies in both the private and public sectors, as well as for promoting entrepreneurship in deep tech and advanced technologies.

Bruno Miguel Silva is a physician working in Medical Oncology and an invited faculty member at NOVA Medical School in Lisbon. His work focuses on cancer survivorship, personalised medicine, medical education and simulation-based training.

He leads the GENCareSim consortium, an EP PerMed-funded project focused on simulation-based education for hereditary cancer survivorship. His work also includes the implementation of clinical pathways and digital solutions in cancer survivorship, with particular emphasis on integrating patient-reported outcomes and personalised supportive care into clinical practice.