The annual Lake Nona Impact Forum takes place this week at Medical City, bringing together several U.S. Surgeons General, health-care executives, policy experts and public figures like Dr. Deepak Chopra.
Officials will also announce new health and well-being initiatives for the Lake Nona community.
Now in its fifth year, the Impact Forum was inspired by other well-known forums for thought leaders such as the Aspen Institute.
What makes the conference unique is its local role.
The meeting aims to “familiarize the world with Lake Nona Medical City,” and present Lake Nona as a living lab for testing ideas and creating potential partnerships, said Gloria Caulfield, executive director of the Impact Forum.
“Most folks who come to Impact Forum say they had no idea that there’s this vibrant life-science center here,” she said. “We want to tell people and business leaders that this community cares about promoting Orlando as a destination for companies that to bring high-paying jobs in life-science, technology, health and wellness.”
Achieving this goal may be a bit tricky and even more important this year, because right across the street from where the conference is being held, sits Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. Central Florida’s only nonprofit research institute was Impact Forum’s main host last year, but is now planning to leave Florida.
This year, the forum is held in a walking distance from Sanford Burnham at GuideWell Innovation Center, UCF College of Medicine and UF Research & Academic Center.
The choice of meeting location wasn’t so much because of changes at Sanford Burnham, but because of new opportunities that have presented themselves since last year, including the opening of the GuideWell Innovation building last March, said Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliance at Tavistock.
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The 3-day invitation-only conference aims to have a more direct call to action message for its guest, particularly because it’s taking place during a year when the U.S. health-care system is at its most volatile.
“We’ve never had an interesting time like this, with a new administration and lot of questions and uncertainty regarding health care,” said Caulfield. “So this is the time to remind this audience that it’s not about the status quo and that innovation is crucial to the path forward.”
In addition to health-care and policy leaders, the conference is also hosting executives from industry giants like Google and LinkedIn.
“It’s always been a goal for us to have more of those prominent guests to help re-imagine what they would do with technology we’ve invested in here,” said Caulfield.
Since last year’s Impact Forum, Lake Nona has introduced a healthy smart home named WHIT, and has opened the doors to GuideWell Innovation CoRE, a co-working space for health startups.
Both grew from ideas brought up during one of the conferences, Caulfield said.
The Impact Forum kicks off on Wednesday evening, with remarks by UCF College of Medicine dean Dr. Deborah German, City of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs. It wraps up on Friday with a discussion about the future of public health by a panel of former U.S. Surgeons General Dr. David Satcher, Dr. Antonia Novello, Dr. Richard Carmona and Dr. Jocelyn Elders. CNN’s Sanjay Gupta will moderate the panel.
The public isn’t completely excluded from the conference.
Certain sessions will be live-streamed on Impact Forum’s Facebook page. Videos from other sessions will be available at a later date on the forum’s website.
Also, Chopra will lead a free meditation session for Lake Nona residents on Thursday evening.
Johnson & Johnson is the conference’s main sponsor.
nmiller@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5158, @naseemmiller
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