The Innovation Times Podcast - Meaningful Conversations about Disruption, Innovation & Transformation with Industry Leaders

I met Dr. Julielynn Wong at the eHealth Canada 2017 conference. We talked about the world of 3D printing and the true value created by this innovative area of new tech. A pioneer in the world of 3D printing, Dr Wong has been at the forefront of the medical 3D printing revolution.

About Dr Julielynn Wong

Julielynn is an award-winning, Harvard educated physician-scientist, innovator, and educator whose life’s mission is to use technology to benefit the world. She is internationally recognized as a 3D printing, drone, robotics, telemedicine and digital health pioneer who uses cutting-edge technology to deliver healthcare solutions in diverse environments, from outer space to remote communities with limited access to healthcare resources.  She was the first to 3D print medical supplies onboard the International Space Station and at the Mars Desert Research Station.  She designed a solar-powered mobile 3D printing system that can be transported in a carry-on suitcase to produce medical supplies in remote, off-grid communities.  Julielynn regularly lectures on innovation in healthcare and is a frequent contributor to various media outlets including ABC News, Forbes, and the Huffington Post.

3D4MD was conceived by Dr. Julielynn Wong in 2011. 3D4MD combines a wealth of practical clinical knowledge, advanced qualifications, and a crowd-sourcing innovation process to address some of the most difficult healthcare problems faced in remote and challenging places to work.  3D4MD is a for-profit social enterprise whose mission is to use 3D printing, drones, and other low-cost technologies to make sustainable solutions to reduce poverty and deliver healthcare in the most challenging places to those who need it the most.  We are always seeking corporations, foundations, and organizations who share our vision and want to provide social investment to impact over 1 billion lives. We provide high-quality products, services, programs and events to generate revenue to support our humanitarian projects to save lives, time, and money.

Chris Hobson and I had a great chat at eHealth Canada 2017 just a few weeks ago. He shared his vision of the future and what technology is bringing to the table when it comes to changing the outcomes of traditional healthcare industry.

Dr. Chris Hobson, MD MBA is the Chief Medical Officer and chief privacy Officer with Orion Health. He had key areas of responsibility for the clinical direction of Orion Health products and solutions, and ensures the protection of patient safety and privacy in everything Orion Health does. He is a primary care practitioner and internist certified in healthcare informatics. He has extensive international clinical, technical and policy-level expertise, drawing from his background successfully developing and implementing health information technology globally. He is a regular presenter at industry events internationally; in addition to his responsibilities for patient safety and privacy, he has active interests in care coordination, population health and disease management.

I had the opportunity of meeting Fatima Paruk of Allscripts at eHealth Canada 2017 in Toronto. With a global experience and a great personality, Fatima told us about what is happening at Allscripts and where the industry is headed.

Fatima Paruk, Principal Outcomes Consultant, Analytic Admin

Fatima Paruk, M.D., MPH, is the Chief Medical Officer at Allscripts Analytics. She provides medical leadership to a world-class team to develop, design and deploy predictive models to improve health. She is a physician and public health specialist that has been extensively involved in health systems and global surgical initiatives. She established Kenya’s injury surveillance system, has worked to identify gaps in care and promote hospital quality improvement. In addition to her executive role, Fatima remains committed to disaster response and recently authored Kenya’s National EMS policy.

I am very excited on this month's episode as I have two very prominent guests on the show. Enjoy !

Click the Audio Player Below to Listen !

In this episode we have some great content lined up. I recently attended the B.Con (Branded Content) conference by Strategy in Toronto and met with the leaders of the content industry today. with hundreds of conversations during the show its sometimes hard to remember people but i wanted to send out a special shout out to the ladies at lunch and hope they are listening to this episode.

In today’s episode speak with three influences who in their own way are leading content within their industry.

I first speak to Robert Rose, keynote speaker at the conference about his ideology and insights. I then speak with Harry Brisson from Nielsens Media Lab. In the end you will listen to my interview with Katrina Craigwell, Director Global Innovation at GE Digital.

Throughout all these conversations there is one thing that resonated clearly and that is the need of branded content within any industry that you play in. Content today, as every presentation resonated, had moved from being a one off event to being a constantly updating aspect of brands. The example of L’Oreal Canada was just one of the exemplary sessions that spoke about how they have changed the way they generate content though a new revolutionary and agile model.

So without any further ado,lets listen to my conversations at the conference.

The National Crowdfunding Association of Canada Conference a few weeks ago in Toronto was a hit. I met with Crowdfunding fanatics, experts and people who are a big part of the industry. Overall, a very well put together event, the biggest takeaway was the quality of sessions and conversations. From Venture funds to Angels to Crowdfunding platforms, the conference was definitely a highlight of the Canadian Crowdfunding Industry in 2016.

I met with a number of people at the event and has the pleasure of having in depth conversations with three disruptors in the industry. I first spoke with Arti Modi, CEO and Co-Founder of LendingArch, a Calgary based financing platform. Arti share some key insights about how the industry is being affected by Millennials as an example and what their company is doing differently that taps into an underserved market. More details on LendingArch at www.lendingarch.com

I also spoke with Founders of Canadas Only Luxury Electric Sports Vehicle, a huge disruptor that is taking the route of Equity Crowdfunding to raise over $25 Million. Both Mike and Mario shared their insights into the automobile industry with a touch on technology and crowdfunding and why their choices of taking the equity crowdfunding route was the best decision they could make. More details on this revolutionary global phenomenon with its home right here in Canada at www.dubucmotors.com

Lastly I spoke with Peter-Paul Van Hoeken, Founder & CEO of FrontFundr, a Vancouver based Crowdfunding platform that launched a new offering during the Conference. Peter provided his insights about new regulations, traditional funding methods and how the process of raising capital has changed to Crowdfunding. More details on www.frontfundr.com

With so much innovation going on around us, funding the cause is one of the top priorities of any entrepreneur. With popular crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and many others, entrepreneurs, inventors, designers and fanatical believers of their products have created a new niche of raising funds to make their dreams a reality. As opposed to traditional financing and even newer financial models that include Venture capital, this is the world of crowdfunding.

Are you a winner? Are you someone that always gets what they want? Are you one of those people who do what they set their eyes on no matter what the circumstances? If you answered yes to all of these questions then you are among the highly successful people in the world that have a proven formula for success. If you did not answer yes not all of these questions, you are part of the other majority in the world that tries to succeed but has good and bad days. This post is for the majority- because have some catch-up to do.

Success is not magic or sorcery. Success has also nothing to do with luck. For someone to be lucky would mathematically be attributed to chance or probability almost every single time. Luck is also a factor that happens when we get or are presented with an opportunity. “I found a great job. I got lucky”, or “I found the best tickets, I got lucky”. These are terms commonly used to define a stroke of luck, but these are nothing but opportunities where you got favored through chance or probability theory. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can still say you got lucky. No harm done.

Success, chance, opportunity or probability? Being successful to most of the part is an art. It’s a defined series of steps or actions that must take place in order to yield results that you then call success. Sometimes success is also failing, if that was your goal in the first place. So in addition to being relative how you define it and how you view success in the specific situation, let’s assume that for the sake of this blog, success is gaining or achieving something that you are working towards. It could be monetary, financial, career, professional or personal goal that you have set your eyes and mind to. So what would it take to be successful? How can we have just one formula to succeed at everything? Is it even possible to succeed at everything with just one frame of mind? Yes it is. Here is how.

* Plan Your Success Planning is a key part of success. Everyone we know as successful have achieved success through careful planning. Ye I can guarantee that. Take a look around and look at people in your circle, your community your city that are highly successful. Every one of them succeeded because of a plan, each being unique to that individual. Highly successful people have the habit of planning the steps they need to take to succeed and the collection of these steps is the plan. A plan usually has a few moving parts. As you start you need to create key milestones in your plan. These are things that stand out as important things that must happen as your plan takes place. You also need to have a timeline of when things should happen in your plan. This is called your timeline, and lastly what the end result of your plan should be. Without identifying these, your plan is as good as a sand castle. Success has a much higher chance of happening if planned properly.

* Respect Time Everytime Time and tide wait for none. This saying stands true no matter what year it is or what place on earth you live on. Time has been called and known as the most precious commodity in the world. Given that you have planned your steps to success, most of the times it is helpful to have a set defined time with your plan. A set time for success will give you the right direction and help you put together the right resources. Planning time is also key to being able to set your milestones. Respect time as the ultimate governor of success.

* Monitor Progress Planning your steps and allocating time to your success is not enough if you do not have a mechanism to measure your progress. Measuring results, progress or the lack of are important to gauge how your plans to succeed are going. Perhaps you are short of time and need to work extra hard or maybe you are far ahead of the curve and need to slow down a little. It could also be that you are far ahead in your plan but have n...

You have probably heard this a hundred times, “you have got to work smart not hard to succeed”.

How do you define working smart though? Would working smart mean less work and not working hard to be smart? If we work hard does that have nothing to do with working smart? Do smart people not work hard? or do hard workers not work smartly ? Confusing, right! Let’s take a deeper look.

Traditionally, working hard is considered to be the cornerstone of achievement. You work hard at something, burn midnight oil, sweat and out run everyone else around you, to reach your goal. Maybe it’s school, or grad school, or looking for a job. Maybe its learning a new skill, or improving an existing one for that manner.

It has been well known, said a hundred thousand times and drilled into our heads – “if you want to succeed, work hard”. “You have to burn midnight oil”. “Life is not easy, you have to work very hard to achieve something “. I completely am a fan of this thought, yet so many us miserably fail at achieving our goal even after working so hard at it. We sometimes fall just short by inches, left to bite the dust. I have personally tasted this failure, even though I worked so hard at things. I just did not succeed.

What was wrong? Was I not working hard? I was working very hard ! So what was wrong! Oh no, Was it about being smart ?

Being smart is about making smart choices. Its about making the right decision, the right step or the right choice. Smart people move up the ladder real fast. They also are the ones that have great cars, lot of money, and everything else the rest of us desire. Right?

These are people that played smart and won big times. Seems so easy. But does that also mean they did not work hard to be where they are. Consider some very famous people, your idols, and your heroes. Did they just work smart and not hard? My honest opinion. They worked very hard. They worked so hard that we cannot even imagine what they went though. People who are successful in business life, work, or a profession typically go through hell before they can reap the rewards of success.

Take the example of musicians. Training for 8 to 12 hours a day is not uncommon among the top highly paid musicians in the world. Similarly performers, artists, professionals spend hundreds of hours honing their skills, without taking any shortcuts to perfect their art and to stay at the top. As you reach the pinnacle of success, you start making less mistakes. As you grow more experienced, you make less errors, and this results in something that saves you a lot of time, effort and energy. You have now become smart. You now make smart choices. You now play smart!

Working hard or working smart cannot be separated from each other. Even when working hard you have to make smart choices. You cannot just wake up one day and say to yourself, “Today I will make smart choices”. No, you should be saying that to yourself every day and work “hard” on it.

Give anything your best shot and work towards your goals like there is no tomorrow. Be strong willed and work hard to get what you want, because the desire to achieve something is only as strong as the smallest distraction that can take you away from it. Be smart about setting your goals and planning how to achieve your goal. Be smart about making choices in life and then work on making those choice spring you good things. Work hard in making smart choice and work even harder to learn how to make smart choices. Make mistakes but be smart enough to learn from them.

Try to be smart in making your choices in life and work hard towards fulfilling your dreams !