One of my core beliefs is that if we give people access to the data, information, and tools they need to solve their own problems, they will. The Maker movement is an example of a group of people who embody this idea. They modify and improve the world around them. They look at a problem and not only say, […]
How to judge an innovation
Update: George Hacks is being held again this year, January 26-27, 2019. I’ll serve as a judge once again and I can’t wait to see what students come up with! George Hacks is a medical and assistive device hackathon happening this weekend in Washington, DC. The students organizing the event have done a stellar job recruiting […]
The Rise of the New Bio-citizen
Over the next two days, I’ll be part of a group convened by Eleonore Pauwels and Todd Kuiken to discuss barriers to citizen-driven biomedical research. If you are intrigued, read the report, “The Rise of the New Bio-citizen,” which lays out how people “are pursuing a range of activities from analyses of genomic data for […]
Flashback: Announcing the Invent Health Initiative
I recently signed on as an advisor to a group of George Washington University students who are organizing a medical and assistive device hackathon on March 24-25, 2018, in downtown DC. Check it out if you live nearby! In pulling together resources for them, I found the memo I sent to senior leaders across the Department […]
Conference organizers:
Steal these ideas!
On February 21, Larry Chu, MD, announced that Stanford Medicine X would take a hiatus. He shared the following story: Eight years ago, I posted a tweet announcing my intention to launch my first conference at Stanford. I received a variety of responses, but the one that remains the most poignant is the one I received from […]
The silver lining of jury duty
Imagine taking a 7-hour flight on a low-budget airline every day for 5 weeks, sitting elbow to elbow with the same 22 people, listening to fragments of some of the most violent, upsetting stories you have ever heard. That was my experience of grand jury duty in Washington, DC. I tried to sit quietly and endure. […]
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