Washington, D.C., August 3, 2010 – Bill Gates, Co-Chair and Trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will provide a keynote address on the opportunity of mobile technologies to improve health outcomes in the developing world at the 2010 mHealth Summit, the summit organizers announced today. The summit, organized by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the mHealth Alliance, will be held November 8-10 in Washington, DC.
“We are honored to have Bill Gates join the mHealth Summit. The event has quickly become the premier meeting place for leaders focused on research and the delivery of health services through the implementation of mobile technologies,” said Richard Scarfo, Director of the mHealth Summit and Director of Strategic Alliances at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
Gates will be keynoting an interactive discussion on November 9 at 1:00 p.m. EST during the 2010 mHealth Summit. The event will connect leaders in health, government, academia, philanthropic organizations and the private sector to advance discussion and decision making on the intersection of mobile technology, health practice, research, and policy in the United States and abroad, with a particular focus on low and middle income countries.
Mobile Health, or “mHealth,” is rapidly becoming a transformative solution for improving quality healthcare services in poor and remote regions around the world. With over 5 billion mobile subscriptions globally, cell phones are becoming a tool to help close the digital divide and increase access to a range of services, including healthcare.
“We are delighted that Bill Gates is joining the mHealth Summit to advance the discussion on how modern mobile and computing technologies can save lives and promote healthier communities in even the world’s poorest places,” said David Aylward, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance, whose founding partners include the Rockefeller, United Nations, and Vodafone Foundations, PEPFAR and the GSM Association.
Verizon Wireless, the partnering sponsor, will be joined by other sponsors including Abbott Labs, American Telemedicine Association, CTIS, McKesson Foundation, Microsoft Research, Pfizer, Qualcomm, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skype and the West Wireless Health Institute.
The event is expected to attract more than 2,000 attendees from around the globe, feature over 150 exhibitors and will be held November 8-10, 2010 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
