We need to recognise that a meaningful and successful evolution of an integrated health and care service provision will be determined by how well it responds to any determinant affecting an individual’s wellbeing need i.e., state of education, employment, living circumstances, social inclusion, personal health practices, personal care, and support etc.

Success is dependent on how well our services and systems integrate to better enable understanding of cause and effect, and not just in a way that enables the most appropriate response, but in a way that creates opportunity for early intervention, or better still prevention?

It is without question that technology has a pivotal contribution to early intervention and prevention, we are already seeing great potential from the explosion of investment worldwide into wearables, Internet of Things (IOT) and mHealth. Research has also found there to be hundreds of thousands of health-related consumer apps, yet most have been downloaded fewer than 5,000 times!

Given that the data to be managed by these tech solutions, and any integrated health, care and support systems is the most personalised and important data about our lives. Do we need to be concerned that most of this investment is motivated by the exploitation of our data for shareholder profit? is this a bad thing? Even if you answer no to these questions, we surely must be concerned that the approaches tend to perpetuate the building of data silos, on the basis that data is power and wealth! If we are going to leverage the technology and in ways that can truly help us all, with our personal needs, then maybe we need a new ‘tech4good’ social enterprise approach to how this happens? One that is about partnership, sharing and cooperation, and built on basis of securing and maintaining openness in the way data is used, and thus trust with the user community.

Building a non-silo’ d digital approach capable of service individual, family, and community wellbeing development, that is safe, secure, trustworthy and puts the needs of the user community above all else, is arguably the greatest modern-day challenge for our technologists to respond to. There is no greater motivation too in the fact that this personally affects us all, and the ones we love and care for.

This is a call to action going out to the to the tech community.

Session takeaways

• Opportunity for Tech to make a more positive contribution to societal development
• Why Tech4Good is the answer and why you should consider how you might contribute
• And why this matters to you personally!

Bio

Is a digital transformation consultant, Tech4Good social solutions innovator, and founder of eCulture Solutions, a successful Exeter based social enterprise business seeking to mobilise socially enterprising “Tech4Good” activity in the delivery of digital solutions aiding the development of resilient and sustainable local economies, in which more people are included, meaningful jobs are created, and our natural environment is protected and regenerated.

In a re-imagining of the legacy business structure Paul is rebuilding his eCulture Solutions business into a sociocracy and cooperative member led non-profit, that aims to fulfil sociocracy’s promise that all voices matter, to be intentional about making sure the voices of people who are most impacted are heard, and able to guide the guide the development of digital social solutions. eCulture Solutions own solutions development portfolio includes:

1 - A Community Data Service - to help facilitate the creation of better connections and cooperation in the delivery of sustainable social, economic, and environmental developments.

2 - a Social Return on Investment (SROI) Model - that quantifies the social and economic measure of a wide range of wellbeing determinants across health, care, welfare, education, and criminal justice, presently confirming more than £2.9bn of social and economic opportunity for Devon.

3 - a Wellbeing Development Digital Ecosystem - to provide a safe, secure, and inter-generational early intervention / prevention solution to link people with support, local community services, and technology solutions aiding development of individual, family, and community wellbeing.

A commercially astute operator Paul has successfully delivered on a wide range of private and public sector requirements, in a commercial context, across a broad range of specialist SME’s (as a co-founder, with start-ups, and at board level), and enterprise solution and service providers.

Note: Speaker information is subject to change