Jen Mielguj, Director IP & Partnerships, DIGITAL and Rick Sethi, Senior Director, Research & Technology │Open Innovation, Medtronic
In partnership with the Embassy of Canada in Paris, DIGITAL led an inaugural Canadian delegation to the Adopt AI International Summit in Paris and hosted a Leadership Series roundtable bringing together leaders across industry, research, venture capital, and government, to advance discussions on bilateral open innovation and healthcare outcomes through technology and collaboration.
The roundtable discussion highlighted the current labyrinth in AI adoption and go-to-market commercialization challenges innovators face. There is an urgency to accelerate adoption, deployment and scaling of AI innovations in healthcare tempered with creating structured, trust-based models to overcome barriers. The dialogue revealed a critical tension that whilst AI presents an unprecedented opportunity to create a more personalized, predictive and preventative future paradigm for healthcare, adoption remains by and large hampered by a complex web of regulatory, funding and data-related barriers. One where excessive regulation and slow-moving frameworks risk rendering current efforts obsolete given the sheer velocity of technology development today.
We identified several pathways for Canada-France HealthTech and MedTech collaboration. We saw a clear need to define multiple entry points, establish communities of practice, explore federated learning as a solution to overcome privacy and sovereignty issues, and increase ways to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) a framework to de-risk collaboration and access global channel partner networks.
The roundtable concluded with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Medicen Paris Region, France’s leading health innovation cluster. We are deepening our bilateral ties to address systemic challenges and accelerate adoption of AI solutions leading to better patient care, data access, and regulatory navigation across Canada and France.
This further demonstrates DIGITAL’s ability to bring innovators together to explore pragmatic models and work together to co-design successful blueprints to de-risk innovation, build trust, and operationalize avenues of cooperation. It also reinforced how DIGITAL members like Medtronic, one of the largest global healthcare technology leaders and a key anchor partner, is accelerating SME growth and scale through collaborative innovation projects and ecosystem investments. Medtronic’s experience in bringing novel technologies into complex clinical environments—paired with its global regulatory, data, and commercialization expertise—illustrates how stronger Canada-France partnerships could help de-risk innovation and shorten timetoimpact.
Key examples include PressureSmart: Innovating Prevention, Early Detection & Management of Pressure Injuries, Transitioning Patients to Homecare, and Beyond the Noise: Clinical Alarm Fatigue Reduction, led by Acute Care & Monitoring within Medtronic, to solve complex problems and build bridges for innovation to transform healthcare for better patient outcomes in Canada and the world.
DIGITAL frequently shares new business opportunities with our network and Members, including hosted thought leadership discussions, international trade delegations and more. We’re also working with attendees of our Leadership Series events to continue the momentum of these conversations. Subscribe to our newsletter or send a message/reach out to Jen Mielguj at jmielguj@digitalsupercluster.ca for more information.
