CONFERENCE

Buzz co-founded the MedTech Actuator in 2018, and is the founding partner at Synthesis Capital - an impact-orientated VC investing in early-stage, deep technology epically, health and wellbeing related ventures. Buzz is also a series clinical entrepreneur - with a background in orthopaedic medicine and microsurgery - and a Professor at the University of Melbourne. Buzz holds strategic roles with the WHO, the European Commission and sits on a number of boards and committees globally.

Philips Chief Medical Officer Carla Goulart Peron, MD, brings over 15 years of experience as both a practicing physician and a healthcare industry leader in medical devices and pharmaceuticals. She has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Strategic Management and a Doctor of Medicine with certification in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and applies her experience, energy, and passion for the advancement of women’s health.

Kay Makishi is Vice President at Lupoff/Stevens Family Office, a NYC based single family office, advising investments into early-stage VC funds and startups. She is also an Advisor for Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, Ambassador for Invest Tokyo, Board Member of Oxford Alumni Association of New York, US-Japan Council Member, and Advisor to Anaut, a Japanese medical device startup, amongst other VCs/startups mainly in the US, Japan, and UK. She is a former founder, operator, and VC turned LP investor based in NYC. Kay received her bachelors from the Pennsylvania State University and masters from the University of Oxford (UK).

Joseph is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Verge HealthTech Fund focusing on early-stage healthcare technology companies that make an impact on global health. Prior to this, Joseph was a scientist researching new cancer therapies, a medical device entrepreneur, and a management consultant for Oliver Wyman where he led life sciences and digital health across Asia. He has 19 scientific publications, 3 patents, and has made investments in 37 healthcare technology companies to date. Joseph has a PhD from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Chris is Digital Health Innovation Lead at Innovate UK, where he is responsible for identifying, developing, and delivering programmes to support the UK Digital Health sector. This currently includes the Biomedical Catalyst, BMC Accelerator programme and Investor Partnerships.

Chris has over 35 years’ experience in the healthcare technology sector, building a successful career at global healthcare companies Philips and Hewlett Packard where he held various positions in the UK and their US headquarters.

Prior to joining Innovate UK, Chris held the position of Associate Director of Innovation in the NHS and was also responsible for overseeing the development of innovative technologies through the NHS Innovation Hubs.

Matthew Holt is an old curmudgeon in the world of health technology. Best known as the founder of The Health Care Blog (THCB) and, with Indu Subaiya, the Health 2.0 conferences, he now splits his time between THCB and the SMACK.health Advisory service for health tech startups.

Starting in 2007 (yup, before Digital Health was cool!), he led Health 2.0, the leading conference series showcasing frontier technologies in health care until 2020. He has also maintained The Health Care Blog as a leading source of opinion, news, and interviews about health and health technology since 2003, now attracting around 100,000 visitors each month. He also talks a lot—maybe too much!

Joëlle Barral is a Senior Director of Research & Engineering at Google DeepMind, leading a global team advancing the frontiers of foundational AI research and applying AI to life sciences and healthcare. She joined Google in 2014 and spearheaded Verb Surgical, a joint venture between Verily and Johnson & Johnson, building an AI-augmented surgical robotics platform. After two decades in California, Joëlle is now based in Paris. She holds an MS in Maths/Physics from École Polytechnique and a PhD in EE from Stanford University.

Levi Shapiro is a Managing Partner of Kizna Growth Partners, a growth-stage, industry-agnostic DeepTech Israeli venture fund leveraging Japanese partnerships to bridge Israeli innovation and Japanese scale. He is a prominent figure in the Israeli HealthTech community, invsting in distressed Israeli medical technology companies and leading healthtech funds like Life Science Vision and Veritas.

Ten years ago, Shapiro created mHealth Israel (12,000+ members), a non-profit strengthening the Israeli health and climate entrepreneurial community with the mission to “improve the human condition”. In this capacity, he fostered hundreds of partnerships, collaborations and investments with many of the world’s leading healthcare organizations. mHealth Israel conducts bi-monthly events, inbound / outbound delegations, US government lobbying, etc. His efforts encompass academia, where Shapiro has been faculty at Reichman University (School of Entrepreneurship) and Hebrew University (BioMED MBA).

Shapiro began his career in global roles at multinational corporations like Toyota and IBM. He is fluent in Japanese and Italian and held leadership roles in Europe and Asia. As an entrepreneur, Shapiro founded multiple startups and sits on a variety of Advisory Boards.

He studied at Tulane, Cornell and MIT. Together with his family, Shapiro resides in Tokyo with presence in Tel Aviv and New York.

Robert is currently a Managing Partner at 7wire Ventures, where he focuses on investments in digital health companies that empower consumers to be better stewards of their health in today’s changing health ecosystem. Robert currently sits on the boards of Cylinder Health, Groundgame.Health, and Homethrive.

Tomohiro Kuroda received Ph.D. in information science from Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan in 1998. Since August 2013, he has been the director of Division of Medical Information Technology and Administrative Planning (Chief Information Office) of Kyoto University Hospital, Japan, where he also serves as the director of the center for Digital Transformation of Healthcare and the professor of medical informatics in the graduate school of medicine and the graduate school of informatics. His current research interests include Human Interface, Virtual/Augmented Reality, Wearable/Ubiquitous Computing, and Medical/Assistive informatics. He is the president of JSMBE, and a board member of JAMI, and a member of IEEE, ISVR, VRSJ, HISJ and others.

Stephen Johnston, is Fellow, Healthy Longevity at [SOMPO Digital Lab](https://sompo.io/en/) and Managing Director of [Fordcastle](http://www.fordcastle.com/), an impact focused advisory company and venture lab. He is also founder of the [Healthy Habitats](http://www.healthyhabitats.net) network and curates the [Looking Forward] (www.lookingforward.life) newsletter.

Vik Kashyap is the Founder & CEO of Toi Labs, a Silicon Valley-based company backed by leading global bathroom brands and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Toi Labs develops smart bathroom technology to support healthy aging and is currently expanding into Japan. Vik previously developed a novel treatment for inflammatory bowel disease and his journey has been featured in two books: An Epidemic of Absence and Pipe Dreams. Earlier in his career, Vik was a venture capitalist at Battery Ventures, where he invested from a $1 billion global technology fund. He has also served as an angel investor and senior advisor to several technology companies, including Japan’s largest enterprise software firm. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Mel Barsky is a Partner at CABHI Ventures & Director at the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI). CABHI, led by Baycrest Health Sciences, helps innovators develop, disseminate, scale, and promote adoption of promising innovations in the aging and brain health sector. CABHI has funded over $200M and has levered an additional $80M+ for investing in the brain health and longevity sector. To-date, CABHI has funded over 550 projects globally. CABHI innovators and companies have secured over $600M in follow-on investments. Currently, CABHI is the most active AgeTech investor in North America.

After completing graduate studies, Yasuko Akutsu commenced her professional career at GK Industrial Design Institute, where she was engaged in marketing research pertaining to product design and urban development master planning. She subsequently took a career break to focus on child-rearing. She then contributed to the establishment of several commercial brands and managed multiple retail operations, including a children’s furniture store, a health-focused sleep shop, and a healthcare consulting service. In 2012, she founded MT Health Care Design Research Inc., specializing in the integration of design and healthcare. Since 2019, she has held the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Patient Support at Chiba University Hospital.

Esther Talboom-Kamp, member of the Board of Directors at Zuyderland, plays a key role in the hospital’s digital healthcare transformation. Under her leadership, Zuyderland, in collaboration with health insurer CZ, secured transformation funding to drive innovation in care delivery. A medical doctor with a PhD in eHealth implementation from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), she also serves as Associate Professor and board member of the National eHealth Living Lab. With prior leadership roles at Saltro and Unilabs, her vision focuses on digital care pathways, regional collaboration, and scientific evaluation to ensure accessible, personalized, and future-proof healthcare.

Michael Ringel is Chief Operating Officer at Life Biosciences, a company focused on cellular rejuvenation for diseases of aging. Prior to joining Life Bio, Michael was Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG, where he worked for 25 years. He is on the Board of Hevolution Foundation US, the charitable organization focused on extending healthy aging, the Board of AFAR, one of the oldest organizations supporting healthy aging through biomedical research, and on the Executive Board of the Sheba Longevity Center, a clinic devoted to healthy aging at one of the world's best hospitals. Ringel holds a B.A. summa cum laude in biology from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in biology from Imperial College, and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School.

Patricia Debergue is the director of the National Research Council of Canada’s (NRC) Aging in Place Challenge Program, a program that is part of NRC’s Life Sciences division and that supports the choice of older Canadians to age in place within their homes and communities, through technology and innovation. Before becoming program director in April 2022, she was leading a research section in digital health at the NRC’s Medical Devices Research Centre where she had been conducting research for over 15 years.

Peter Julius is the CEO of Public Intelligence. He founded the company i 2007. Peter is an international speaker and innovator and is recognized for his senior knowledge within care, social and wellbeing innovation. A better life for people in need of care is the main driver for Peters ambition of combining the strongholds og Japan and Denmark. The idea is to create global possibilities for companies in a unique business combination of Japan and Denmark. Peter has been advising more than 100 plus startups within the care industry and has a extensive international network. Peter is also an expert within Living Labs and is promoting the idea of systematic innovation with the Public Intelligence Living Lab Methodology.

Naoki Kondo has been a professor of Social Epidemiology at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine since 2020. He is a physician specializing in the elucidation of social determinants of health, such as poverty and isolation, and their countermeasures. He is involved in the development of equitable health promotion services that leave no one behind and their evaluation methods by promoting multiple project including the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, a follow-up study of 300,000 older people. He is an expert member of the World Health Organization's Technical Asvisory Group on Social Connection.

Rie Yano is a serial entrepreneur and investor with deep expertise in the U.S. and Japanese startup ecosystems. She's the co-creator of Vitalist Bay, a longevity innovation hub in the Bay Area, and a Venture Partner at Coral Capital. Previously, she founded Material World, a pioneering fashion trade-in platform in NY that redefined luxury resale. After the company’s acquisition by MIXI and serving as GM of the U.S. entity post-exit, Rie returned to building and advising startups—now focused on longevity, AI, and robotics—while supporting cross-border expansion and early-stage innovation.

Brittany Barreto dedicates her work to advancing women’s health innovation by equipping key stakeholders with data-driven insights and strategic advice on the femhealth market. She is Best-Selling Author of Unlocking Women’s Health, FemTech and the Quest for Gender Equity. Received her doctorate from Baylor College of Medicine in Molecular and Human Genetics. As a serial entrepreneur, she is known for her first futuristic company Pheramor, the world's first DNA-based dating app. Her time in venture capital included being a senior venture associate at Capital Factory and co-founding Coyote Ventures. Today, she hosts the FemTech Focus podcast, manages the largest virtual community of femtech founders, consults corporations, governments, and investors on their women’s health strategies, and speaks on the world’s largest stages about the importance of sex and gender in research and innovation.

Alice Zheng, MD is a Co-founder and Partner at Foreground Capital, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage women’s health start-ups. Previously, she was a Principal at Foreground’s precursor funds at RH Capital, where she and the team built one of the largest dedicated venture capital portfolios in women’s health. At Foreground Capital, she continues to manage RH Capital funds and serves as a board director for Seven Starling and Millie and as a board observer for AOA and Cofertility. Prior to that, Alice was a women’s health practice leader and management consultant at McKinsey & Company. Alice holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MD/MPH from the University of Michigan.

Helen Tomlinson was appointed as the former Governments Menopause Employment Champion. Working alongside the Department for Work and Pensions, Helen worked with employers to develop strategies that empower women experiencing menopause to stay and progress in work. Applying the principles of Education, Allyship, Lived Experience & Leadership creating Cultural Change, Helen built a clearly defined sector based strategy to support women across all aspects of intersectionality throughout their career from a women’s health perspective.

Tomoko Minagawa has served as Founder & Representative Director of Femtech Community Japan, as well as Executive Director, Women’s Health Commercial Lead at Organon Japan since 2022. Currently responsible for Organon’s business development and expansion specifically in Women’s Health and Femtech domain. Founded Femtech Community Japan, an industry association to accelerate Femtech industry through networking with 500+ players in Japan and global. Prior to Organon, engaged in the startup investment in Global Brain, focusing on the domains of Femtech (Women‘s health), Insurtech and a broad range of Deeptech. Specialised in management consulting for enterprise companies in cross border business development, open-innovation strategy and strategic alliance implementation, with the experience in IBM, a global consulting firm, and startup CxO. Masters in Engineering at University of Tokyo, Masters in Business Administration at University of Cambridge.

Rhiannon Box is a dynamic and energetic leader with extensive experience in public sector leadership positions. She is currently in the role of Assistant Secretary of Health Equity Branch at the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, supporting equitable healthcare services to priority populations and delivering the Australian Government’s strong women’s health agenda.

Rhiannon is currently responsible for co-ordinating a range of initiatives to deliver improved healthcare access and affordability for women and girls in Australia. These measures will upskill primary care workers to support women across their life course with a particular focus on contraception, endometriosis, pelvic pain, perimenopause and menopause, increased access to services, and making both services and medicines more affordable.

Rhiannon is passionate about reforming government programs and systems that aim to disrupt entrenched and intergenerational disadvantage. She also has a particular interest in addressing gender-based violence and led the development of the Australian Government’s National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.

Rhiannon has previously held roles in aged care, families and children policy, and healthcare safety and quality. Rhiannon maintains a contemporary understanding of key issues and actively pursues consultation and partnerships with sector stakeholders, academics, front line workers and communities.

Kenji Shibuya is a global health expert specializing in systems innovation, venture investment, and healthcare globalization. He is CEO of Medical Excellence JAPAN and Venture Partner at Eight Roads Ventures Japan. A former professor at King’s College London and the University of Tokyo, he has advised WHO, CEPI, and governments worldwide. He helped shape Japan’s global health policy at the G8 and G7 summits. Shibuya holds an MD from the University of Tokyo and a doctorate in public health from Harvard.

Geetali leads IFC’s equity investments in early to growth stage technology businesses as well as VC Funds across emerging markets in Asia. She also represents IFC on the boards and LP advisory committees of these companies and funds.

Prior to joining IFC, Geetali spent 15 years as an investment professional with leading private equity and venture capital funds including Actis Capital, Leapfrog Investments, DEG (German DFI) and Bamboo Capital Partners. She was primarily focused on early and growth stage investments in consumer, technology, financial services and healthcare sectors. She began her career in investment banking at Citigroup.

Geetali holds an MBA from the National University of Singapore (Dean’s List) and Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Mumbai (Honors).

She was recently featured in GPCA’s inaugural Southeast Asia Women Investors Directory.

Zhenya Lindgardt served as CEO of The Commons Project Foundation focusing on empowering people with their health data and enabling stronger ecosystem healthcare across the world. Zhenya also leads a public pregnancy diagnostics company Sera Prognostics, Inc., which provides biomarker tests to reduce effects of preterm birth and pregnancy complications. Previously, Zhenya was a member of Uber Technologies, Inc executive team and Senior partner and Managing Director with The Boston Consulting Group nearly two decades. Zhenya holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and lives in San Francisco with her husband and three daughters.

Biju Mohandas is Partner and Global Head of Healthcare Investments with over two decades of investing, operating and leadership experience spanning 20 countries in Asia and Africa. He serves on the Investment Committee of LeapFrog’s flagship fund and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

Maria is a technologist who co-founded Flare in 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya. Also known as rescue.co, the company has built a cloud-native emergency response platform addressing the lack of access to emergency services in 2/3 of the world. Today they operate in several countries and have rescued over 45,000 people from previously impossible situations. Before founding Flare, she worked in engineering, UX and product leadership in New York and LA, including leading product development and digital campaigns for Unilever, JP Morgan Chase, and Intel and startups like WeWork and Qwire. She holds a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University.

Akihisa Shiozaki serves as Member of Japan’s House of Representatives, and is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, representing District No. 1 of the Ehime prefecture. Deputy Secretary-General Liberal Democratic Party. He served as the Executive Director of the LDP‘s “web3 Project Team” and the “AI Project Team“, and lead the team’s effort in drafting the “web3 Whitepaper” and the ”AI Whitepaper ,recognized as key policy paper in which shaped the nation’s policy initiatives in these fierds. Previously Akihisa was widely recognized as an expert attorney in corporate crisis management and various corporate governance issues, especially those with multi-jurisdictional or parallel civil and criminal components. Akihisa worked in the Prime Minister’s office as senior policy advisor from 2006 to 2007. He graduated from the University of Tokyo (LL.B.), holds an M.A. in international policy from Stanford University, and completed his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he served as class president.

Kanoko Oishi a graduate of Harvard Business School (MBA). She founded Mediva Inc., a healthcare dedicated consulting company in 2000 after working as a partner at McKinsey & Company. Mediva not only provides consulting services but also develops and operates its own hospitals, clinics and nursing care facilities, in Japan and abroad. She serves on numerous governmental committees, including the Regulatory Reform Council and Vice CEO of Medical Excellence Japan. She is an outside director for Shiseido, Ezaki Glico, etc. She is a member of the Harvard Business School Japan Advisory Board and Osaka University Management Council at.

Rob is CEO of HekaBio K.K., an in-licensing bio venture accelerating access to medicines and MedTech in premium global markets.

Over three decades, Rob has founded, managed and exited multiple healthcare businesses in Japan, Europe and the US including Junicon, a global healthcare marketing research consultancy that developed Japan’s first comprehensive Key Opinion Leader (KOL) physician database and pioneered in-hospital observational research, and Vorpal Technologies, a regulatory consultancy that achieved the leading position in Japan for new category MedTech approvals.

He maintains a worldwide trust network with leading innovators in MedTech and Pharma through optimism, tenacious follow-through and a spirit of collaboration.

Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California San Diego. She teaches at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS), and is the Director of the Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology (JFIT). Her research focuses on Japanese business strategies, management and employment practices, corporate culture, financial markets, manufacturing, and innovation. Latest English books include "The Business Reinvention of Japan" (2020) and "Japan Re-Emerges" (2024), the Japanese versions of which have become bestsellers in Japan. Schaede holds a Ph.D. in Japan Studies and Economics from Marburg University, Germany. She has conducted at various universities and research institutes in Japan for over 9 years.

A. Sinclair Dunlop

Managing Partner, Epidarex Capital

Sinclair has 25 years of experience successfully building life science companies and delivering competitive returns to international investors. Sinclair is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of four Epidarex Capital venture funds (www.epidarex.com). He currently serves on the Boards of Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Clyde Biosciences Ltd. and Lario Therapeutics Ltd. Sinclair received his M.B.A. from Columbia Business where he was the R.C. Kopf British-American Fellow in international business. Sinclair also holds an M.A. with Honours in Political Economy from the University of Glasgow and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Earlier in his career, he was a political economist with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is Chairman of Inspiring Scotland, one of Europe’s largest venture philanthropy charities.

Aki focuses on direct investments in health tech, AI, and enterprise software at WiL (World Innovation Lab). WiL is a venture capital firm that partners with leading global corporations and government entities in Japan and Asia. With offices in Palo Alto and Tokyo, the firm’s mission is to serve as a bridge between startups and corporations in the United States, Europe, and Asia, with a particular focus on Japan. Aki holds a B.A. from the University of Tokyo and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. She completed Stanford’s d.school class Design for Extreme Affordability, and is a recipient of the Masa Son Scholarship Generation 1. She has been selected as one of Venture Capital Journal's 40 under 40 Rising Stars.

Nicky Agahari is the Chairman, CEO and Founder of Australis Scientific which was spun out of Harvard Medical School Health Tech Fellowship in 2022. Australis Scientific is commercializing a platform neuromodulation technology starting with the Confidanz™ Smart Patch a discreet digital solution for the management of urinary incontinence. Prior to founding Nicky has extensive commercial experience at Medtronic and Boston Scientific having held positions in R&D, Corporate Research, Sales, Marketing and Corporate Venture throughout APAC, ASEAN, North America and Greater China. He holds a B.Sc (Medical Science), MBA and a Health Tech Fellowship from Harvard Medical School.

Chernicoff is currently the Senior Manager of Global Research and Innovation at the Toyota Mobility Foundation. In this role, Chernicoff currently leads and established the Foundation's original research agenda, initiatives, and programs, while also providing technology guidance to various projects. With a focus on both near- and long-term perspectives, Chernicoff identifies, conceives, and executes new technology approaches that enhance the solutions implemented by the Foundation and its partners.

Chernicoff's educational background includes a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from M.I.T., a MS in Manufacturing Engineering from Boston University, a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering and Engineering Management from George Washington University, and an EMBA from the RH Smith School of Business