Will Greene

Many rare diseases are deadly and devastating in a way that inspires urgency and a willingness to try experimental interventions, yet treatments are only available for fewer than 5% of them.

In his latest book, clinical geneticist and biotech entrepreneur Dr. Phil Reilly chronicles centuries of medical progress that have contributed to recent breakthroughs in rare disease medicines, diagnostics, and clinical care. He says we're just at the beginning.

If biotech ecosystems in China and across Asia Pacific succeed in developing new medicines and driving medical progress, we all benefit. But the outlook remains murky.

Decorated pathologist and clinician-innovator Dr. Thomas Grogan offers many pearls of general wisdom about innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership: be prepared to fight institutional inertia, make a “total commitment” to customer support, and bring in the patient perspective wherever possible.

The vision of a global system with standards for the sharing, storage, and verification of vaccination data has not materialized. But success in places like Singapore could help the world move towards a digitized healthcare future.

Experts believe artificial intelligence will lead to more efficiency and quality across all aspects of healthcare. And it may have a positive impact in rural communities in the developing world.

New techniques for information storage and retrieval will be essential for enabling the next wave of healthcare innovation.

Three major topics rose up repeatedly in Techonomy events and editorial in 2018: the fall of Facebook, the rise of China, and concerns about the negative impact of connected devices on our brains, the economy, and society. A look back.

Concern about the impact of tech addiction on both individuals and broader society was a consistent theme of Techonomy 2018 earlier this month.

Left brain, meet right brain. Fashion designer Joshua Mudgett brings cutting-edge technology to the design and execution of high fashion.

Twenty years of investment in biomedical infrastructure and innovation is starting to pay off for Singapore.

The growing number of cancer patients in Asia is spurring innovative research and development — and some promising diagnostic developments.

The rising competition between the United States and China could spur technological innovations, improved trade policies, and market reforms. But it also risks devolving into retaliatory spats that diminish cooperation and stall technological progress.

The future of work is being remade by artificial intelligence and automation. The pros and cons were a subject of debate at Techonomy NYC last week.

Japan is one of the oldest societies on earth-over 25 percent of its citizens are over 65-and most project that it will continue to age rapidly in the coming decades. As a result, MedTech entrepreneurs are developing innovative medical technologies designed specifically for eldercare.

At the recent HealthTechO2O conference in Hong Kong, it was clear that Hong Kong has the potential to be a healthcare innovation hub — but that it still has a long way to go to fulfilling that potential.

As the end of 2017 approaches, we look back at the themes that had the greatest impact—and promise to resonate next year and beyond. Through our print and online content, we explored the impact of emerging technologies on virtually every dimension of business and society.

Many devices remain unavailable in low-resource parts of the world. Even in well-developed healthcare systems, we can’t effectively detect and treat many diseases. But new specialized equipment, genomics, and connected diagnostics could lead to breakthroughs.

Cancer kills millions every year. Advances in genomics and related technologies hold enormous potential for prevention and treatment, but researchers need more data. A Techonomy Health session tackled challenges in our current system, and the case for allowing researchers access to our genomes.

New genomics technologies empower us to understand, manipulate, and even write the code of life. These technologies may produce medicine, biofuels, and bring major benefits to humanity. But they can also be used maliciously, for genetic discrimination or bioweapons. How do we ensure that they are used for good? This Techonomy Health session tackled these gnarly matters.

China produces relatively few breakthrough innovations in science, medicine, and healthcare technology. But China’s leaders understand that healthcare innovation is crucial for their nation’s continued rise, and massive new investments and policy reforms could soon transform healthcare R&D. In some fields such as precision medicine, it even may become a global leader.

Asia may be the insurance industry's biggest opportunity for growth. Many companies there are betting on new "insurtech" innovations. China's online-only insurer Zhong An is the world’s most well-funded such startup. Singapore, and Hong Kong have also become centers for tech targeting the region's vast and growing middle class.

Technology is starting to transform insurance. The industry may be conservative, but we're seeing innovation ranging from new health underwriters (like Oscar, whose CEO speaks at Techonomy NYC May 17), to a Scottish company that insures borrowed cars on a per-hour basis.

Too many people around the world lack access to affordable surgery. About 143 million additional procedures are needed each year in low- and middle-income countries to prevent unnecessary death and disability, according to a 2015 study. Yet new devices, AR and VR platforms, data analytics tools, and even AI-powered robots are slowly changing the game.

Human Longevity Institute offers a $25,000 full-day full-body examination including genomic sequencing. It promises to uncover hidden health risks and enable potentially lifesaving interventions. The benefits, it says, are not just for you, but for society, as info is gathered about how our genome intersects with our health. The price is controversial, but co-founder Craig Venter is confident he's onto something big.

Techonomy's five most-viewed stories included reports about our historic conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, a research psychologist's analysis of why so many White Americans support Trump, a trenchant set of predictions about VR and AR, and two of our many articles on healthcare. One explains why Singapore is becoming a digital health hub, and the other examines the rich potential of data.

Many countries in the Middle East see exciting opportunities in genomics. Yet they also face challenging questions about reconciling it with local moral and cultural traditions. At a meeting in Qatar global healthcare leaders debated guidelines for a region where, for example, more than 20% of marriages are between first cousins.

Trump has famously declared that he would move to withdraw from the TPP on his first day as president. But studies show that the agreement would be good for both US and Asian healthcare. Plus, America's habit of bringing investment, ideas, and improved standards of care to Asian healthcare might be in jeopardy.

Thanks to miraculous advances in public health and medical science over the past century, we can prevent and treat many common microbial infections.Yet some in the health industry fear that may be changing. We misuse and overuse antimicrobial drugs on a massive scale, and the bad bugs are beginning to evolve new resistance mechanisms. Data science can play a central role in the fight against the looming global threat.

Healthcare was a recurring theme of the Techonomy NYC conference in late May. In several sessions, the connection between an interconnected world and a healthier world emerged. Author Greene watched the conference from a hotel room in Singapore, and found both enlightening and disturbing connections to his own work on digital healthcare in emerging countries in Southeast Asia.

As healthcare across Asia modernizes, many health tech companies are setting up shop in Singapore, one of the region’s most dynamic healthcare innovation hubs. The innovation-centric country recently committed over $13 billion USD to a five-year R&D plan that emphasizes biomedical sciences.

New digital health technologies offer seemingly boundless promise to extend and improve our lives. Yet they also expose us to a growing array of security risks that require urgent attention from companies, consumers, and regulators everywhere. Data theft is one of the biggest risks. As data bursts from the seams of healthcare IT systems and consumer health apps, cybercriminals are having a field day.

As new technologies continue to drive rapid change in the practice and business of healthcare, keeping up with the latest developments can be difficult. Fortunately, several great books on this topic were published in 2015. As a digital health entrepreneur, I found the following three particularly valuable: The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands by Eric Topol; The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age by Robert Wachter; and Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. by Jeremy N. Smith.

At Techonomy we put on conferences and publish articles and videos. Our most popular articles this year tackled the conceptual problem with the Apple Watch, the Human side of the Internet of Things, how consumer genomics empowers consumers, tech and artificial intelligence progress in Ethiopia, and the need for the biotech industry to step up its game in communicating to the general public. It's a good flavor of the range of issues and topics that fascinate and motivate us. Keep with us in 2016 for much much more!

Over three-quarters of the world’s diabetics live in low- and middle-income countries. It is one of the world’s leading causes of death and disability and afflicts over 400 million people. Many of the most promising new technologies being developed to address this global epidemic are low-cost mobile solutions especially suited for emerging markets. Their impact is likely to be felt strongly in coming years.

As healthcare systems worldwide become increasingly digitized, medical scientists and health researchers have more data than ever. Yet much valuable health information remains locked in proprietary or hidden databases. A growing number of open data initiatives aim to change this, but it won’t be easy.

In many emerging markets, reliable data on healthcare systems is limited or nonexistent. This makes it difficult to address urgent healthcare challenges in some of the world’s least developed countries. But a growing number of tech entrepreneurs and public health activists are finding ways to fill the data gaps. And as smartphones and other connected devices proliferate, fertile new sources of data are emerging.

As LinkedIn works to connect all the world’s professionals, CEO Jeff Weiner is increasingly setting his sights on a bigger vision—to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Since Asia accounts for a large portion of that workforce and a rising share of global economic activity, its importance for the professional network is bound to grow. At Techonomy 2014, Weiner envisioned LinkedIn as a platform that connects all the world’s workers, companies, and educational institutions. This is not an impossible dream. LinkedIn already has more than 364 million registered members globally.

Vietnam’s tech industry is booming. For growth to continue, however, Vietnam must cultivate an increasingly skilled tech workforce and develop new capabilities in research, problem solving, and client service. But building such capabilities requires a major mindset shift at educational institutions, which typically emphasize rote learning over problem solving. Such a change will also challenge companies that opt for rigid hierarchy over the flatter structures that encourage creativity and initiative. To overcome these challenges, many Vietnamese tech companies are partnering with educators, NGOs, and government agencies. Although some companies still think of Vietnam as simply a place for cheap labor, the forward-thinking ones know the country has deeper potential.

Last year, I watched the inaugural Techonomy Bio conference from a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. At the time, I was working on my first healthcare consulting project—a market research study for German medical device manufacturers interested in Vietnam. I spent my days interviewing suppliers, distributors, purchasers, regulators, and other stakeholders, trying to make sense of the snarled Vietnamese healthcare system. Due to the time difference between Vietnam and America, I couldn’t catch the live webcast of the conference, but in the week after the event, I ended each day by kicking up my feet and watching video footage of the 2014 conference sessions on my laptop. Watching those videos hammered home the fact that in both developed and developing countries, much of modern healthcare is fundamentally broken.

A shortage of skilled health workers is an acute and ongoing problem in many emerging markets. Weak medical education systems bear a major part of the blame. But a big opportunity for rapid progress has emerged as online medical education becomes increasingly common. Doctors and nurses in even the poorest countries can now get better training.

As Vietnam emerges as a global hotspot for offshore IT services, the country’s tech workers have more employment opportunities than ever before. With IT talent in high demand, job seekers can be selective. Many want more than just good pay. Increasingly, they also want jobs that allow them to learn and to build products that make a difference. A new survey by ITViec, a jobs platform for Vietnam’s tech industry, suggests that Vietnam’s IT workers are driven as much by passion as by profit. Unfortunately, some outsourcing and product companies do not provide such opportunities.

Tuberculosis kills over a million people each year, mostly in developing countries, where poor public health systems hamper efforts to diagnose and treat it. But NGOs are now embracing new mobile health technologies that could help fight the disease more efficiently and cost-effectively. Further progress will require expensive efforts in low-resource settings where administering drugs and monitoring compliance can be a logistical nightmare.

Vietnam’s IT services sector boomed in recent years as international companies raced to capitalize on the country’s considerable base of low-cost tech talent. Although many came in search of cheap workers for basic tasks, some now see the country as a viable provider of higher-value services, including complex software development, data analytics, and even original R&D. As Techonomy reported in June, Vietnam shows big potential to become a major provider of IT services in the coming years.

Many developing countries don’t have enough doctors to meet their citizens’ healthcare needs. Radiologists are particularly hard to find in many places, but Lifetrack Medical Systems, a digital healthcare startup based in the Philippines, wants to improve the situation with innovative software and services. Radiologists play an important role in medical systems everywhere. As specialists in the use of imaging techniques to see inside patients’ bodies, they support physicians in a wide range of specialties, from orthopedics to obstetrics.

Millions of Southeast Asians today lack access to affordable, quality healthcare. Improving Southeast Asia’s healthcare systems will require billions of dollars in new infrastructure, but putting all that money to work will take time that millions don’t have. As more people gain access to connected devices, however, entrepreneurs, companies, and organizations across the region see potential to speed improvements to healthcare delivery with new web and mobile applications.

Attracted by low labor costs and other advantages, global electronics manufacturers invested billions in Vietnam over the past few years. As they continue to build new factories in 2014, Vietnam’s economy will benefit from the influx of foreign capital, talent, and technology. A small player in the global electronics supply chain just a decade ago, Vietnam exported $38 billion in devices and components last year, according to data from the International Trade Center. Although this pales next to the $560 billion shipped by China, the world’s leading producer of electronics, Vietnam now ranks as the 12th largest electronics exporter in the world.

Vietnam plays a small role in global IT services today, but it has big potential to contribute more in coming years. Many Vietnamese IT companies and policymakers want to develop the human capital necessary for future success. However, they face challenges that will require clever solutions. Like many emerging markets, Vietnam today exports substantially more goods than services. Although revenues from IT services have grown substantially in recent years, the country produces vastly more hardware than software. And while IT services companies outnumber hardware manufacturers, you’ll still find more tech industry workers in factories than in offices.

As online marketplaces and e-commerce services grow in sophistication, small retailers worldwide gain access to new business opportunities that boost local economies and give more choice to consumers everywhere. Even in Southeast Asia, where e-commerce markets remain underdeveloped, local brands see opportunity to achieve national, regional, or even global scale. A few recent initiatives highlight the possibilities.

Traffic problems are acute in many of Asia’s teeming megacities. Millions in Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, and elsewhere endure commutes that can last hours each way. In Manila, where many people travel in open-air vehicles called jeepneys, the pollution can be especially evident. It will take years and many billions of pesos to fix Manila’s infrastructure, but in the meantime, new apps and websites are emerging there that can reduce strain on the city’s transit networks. They can even liberate people from the burdens of commuting altogether.

Companies developing tech-based solutions for consumers in emerging markets see great opportunities in the Philippines today. A growing number of innovative visionaries view the country as a testing ground for products and services with potential for global scale. More are likely on their way. This may come as a surprise to those who think of the Philippines as a tech laggard. Although the country’s tech and startup ecosystems are growing, skeptics often point to the limited post-seed funding, unfavorable business regulations, and other challenges that await would-be innovators.

E-commerce companies moved hard into Southeast Asia in 2013. Armed with innovative strategies and lots of funding, global giants and local startups raced to promote online retailing in a region where brick-and-mortar stores still dominate. Their efforts will bring more than just convenience to tens of millions of net-enabled consumers. They’ll also boost living conditions and create opportunities for a new generation of ambitious entrepreneurs.

After decades of rule by a brutal regime known for imprisoning cyber-dissidents, internet freedom in Myanmar expanded dramatically over the past year, according to a recent report by Freedom House. The report warns that the Internet in Myanmar is still “not free,” however, and that major obstacles remain to further improvement. One is a legacy of repression that casts a shadow on the reform process.

If you’re a regular at the world’s largest and most important technology conferences, you know al lot of them happen in the U.S. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself flying overseas for key conventions in coming years. Across Asia, tech industry pros and enthusiasts are finding increasing value in events that offer great opportunities for inspiration, networking and fun. Like their American counterparts, many of Asia’s conferences are geared toward connecting startups with potential investors, business partners, and mentors. They often follow a formula that includes pitch contests, hackathons, exhibitions, and discussion panels that focus on startup challenges. New events are popping up all the time, but a few major ones dominate the scene.

LinkedIn, the world’s largest social network for professionals, has a massive presence in Asia—over 40 million members with the user base growing daily. Yet it is substantially more successful in some places than others. India accounts for roughly half of its total users in the region. Southeast Asia and Australia together account for another quarter. Penetration in East Asia, however, is lower, especially considering how many professionals live in China, Japan, and Korea. Many factors account for differences in uptake, but cultural factors are very significant.