Why a Danish-Californian collaboration?

For the third straight year, the leading IT nation in the world is Denmark. The top ranking comes from the World Economic Forum emphasizing the small country’s ability to leverage and promote information technology on a large scale.

Innovative health care is at the heart of the Danish technology knowhow ranging from one of the world’s most integrated patient data systems to cutting edge telemedicine solutions. The direct results are higher patient and physician satisfaction rates, optimized workflows and a considerable cost reduction. Where the US spends 16.8 % of GDP on health care, Danes spend only 9.8 %.

California is the seventh strongest economy in world and the global sweet spot for life science: Investors, large corporations and four major research universities all co-exist in an eco-system on the forefront of medical device production, drug development and delivery.

With a small, homogenous and extremely e-ready population and a public, well-coordinated healthcare sector, Denmark is fertile ground as a test bed for new products and solutions within this field. At the same time, the US health care sector presents a new market opportunity for Danish innovative solutions.

Where California has the muscle, Denmark has the agility. A collaboration between the two regions will benefit both, as the momentum for bringing health IT to market continues to grow. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the US healthcare sector could save an annual 80 billion dollars if IT solutions are widely adopted. President Obama has earmarked 19 billion dollars to kick start the implementation and emphasized learning from the Danish example when moving forward.

The Future of Health Innovation will intensify the collaboration by bringing together the Danish and Californian stakeholders to examine how knowledge exchange and joint efforts will move innovative health solutions to the next level.

Innovation Center Denmark

Innovation Center Denmark is a tangible result of Denmark's globalization strategy with the objective to turn Denmark into a leading knowledge-based economy by 2015. This ambitious objective calls for innovative new approaches to position Denmark in the global value chain. For that reason, we are creating innovative hubs in global hot spots, Silicon Valley being one of them. Innovation Center Denmark connects researchers, companies and ideas between Denmark and the US in high-tech areas; CleanTech, Information & Communications Tech and Life Sciences.

SDForum

SDForum is the leading Silicon Valley not-for-profit organization providing an unbiased source of information and insight to the technology community for the past 25 years. It provides a venue for engineers, executives, researchers, technology leaders, and venture capitalists to exchange information on emerging technologies and best practices. It reaches 12,000 software professionals annually through more than 20 events each month. Our members benefit from programs focused on professional development and making the right connections, along with value added services. It passes along to its members business savings including free passes and discounts to industry events and discount programs for local university courses and nation-wide bookstores.