To mark the launch of the collaborative project between Medilink Midlands and the ARISE Innovation Hub, part of Anglia Ruskin University, we will be hosting an exciting hybrid event on Thursday 27th October. The event will be held at Harlow Innovation Park, located in Essex, within the established London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor.
For the first in our series of events held in collaboration with ARISE, we’re taking the MedTech and Systems Special Interest Group (SIG) on the road. Born out of our longstanding partnership with Nottingham Trent University (NTU), this special interest group has met several times a year since it was first established in 2016, and is a great example of how networks of this kind can strengthen connections between academia, clinicians and industry.
This next event in the series explores how digital technologies are providing innovative solutions that are positively impacting mental health care and wellbeing more widely. We’ll hear talks from specialists working across this swiftly developing field, covering topics ranging from AI and machine learning, through to app-based interventions and interactive physical devices.
The event will be introduced by Professor Yvonne Barnett, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Anglia Ruskin University and Medilink Midlands Board Member. Our presentations will be chaired by Professor Phil Breedon, Professor of Smart Technologies at NTU and leader of the MedTech and Systems Special Interest Group since its launch.
We will hear presentations on the day from:
- Professor Graham Ball, Executive Director of the Medical Technologies Centre, Anglia Ruskin University & Founder-CSO of Intelligent Omics
- Dr Joseph C. Manning, MBE, Clinical Associate Professor for the NIHR and HEE based at the University of Nottingham
- Dr Sarah Wright, Global Account Director for Blueskeye,
- Dr Will Farr, Chief Investigator within the NHS, Tangiball
- Emilios Lemoniatis, Director, Frontline Buddy & Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist – Digital Ethics/Innovation, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Offered as a hybrid event, we’d be delighted to welcome you in person on the day. We’ll be creating a dedicated networking space alongside the formal presentations, as well as offering a tour of the facility. We encourage you to bring along your banners and any other take-home resources to facilitate connections between attendees and hopefully spark future collaborations.
To join us in person at Harlow Innovation Park, click on the button below.
Speaker Profiles
Professor Graham Ball, Executive Director of the Medical Technologies Centre, Anglia Ruskin University & Founder-CSO of Intelligent Omics
Presentation title: Digital Innovations for Mental Health – A Partnership Approach
Prof Graham Ball is the Executive Director of the Medical Technologies Research Centre at Anglia Ruskin University and founder-CSO of Intelligent Omics. Prof Ball specializes in the application of innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to the analysis of complex data in the biomolecular, biomedical, and pharmacological domains.
Prof Ball has led the development and validation of bioinformatics algorithms using Machine learning to mine molecular data for the last 20 years. He has focused on applying these approaches to public data repositories leveraging actionable and translational features from the data. He has published over 200 journal papers and 7 patents in this area. After a PhD (UN-funded) modelling environmental systems, in 2000 he shifted his focus to analysis of proteomic and genomic data; searching for proteins and genes associated with cancer. His current research focuses on innovative computational methods that allow the identification of optimized biomarker panels, molecular systems of disease and druggable biology.
Dr Joseph Manning MBE, Clinical-Academic Children’s Nurse, Nottingham University Hospitals Trust
Presentation title: The SAPhE Pathway Study – Using Digital Innovation to Enhance the Safety of Children and Young People Experiencing Mental Health Crisis in Acute Paediatric Care.
Joseph is a Clinical-Academic Children’s Nurse with a strong national and international profile within the fields of nursing, paediatric critical care, and clinical academic capacity and capability development. He is the first registered children’s nurse in the UK to be awarded an HEE NIHR ICA Clinical Lectureship and is seen as a trailblazer in his field.
He has meaningful concurrent engagement in clinical practice and research, holding frontline healthcare and senior leadership roles at Nottingham Children’s Hospital and an Associate Professorship (Research) / Deputy Director of the Centre for Children and Young People Health Research at the University of Nottingham. Joseph leads a methodologically diverse and clinically focused programme of research with a mission to improve the experiences, outcomes and lives of children, young people and their families that access acute care. Over the past decade he has received more than £5.4 million in competitive grant capture from national and international funders. His contribution and leadership to the nursing profession, clinical academic careers, and nursing research has been recognised by being a recipient of a Chief Nursing Officer for England Gold Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020 and by Her Majesty the Queen’s with a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2021.
Dr Sarah Wright, Global Account Director, Blueskeye AI
Presentation title: Using BlueSkeye AI Face Sensing Technology to Improve Quality of Life
After graduating in Anthropology at Swansea University, Sarah worked in market research in the Travel & Tourism sector before leading a European Funded programme to support Leadership Development in Industrial South Wales which in turn introduced Sarah to Telos Partners. At Telos Partners, Sarah led and supported programmes of work with public, private and voluntary sector organisations focussing on sustainable growth and development. Throughout this time Sarah continued with her academic interests completing an MSc in Social Research and her PhD. Sarah’s doctoral research focused on patient-centred care in outpatient settings. Sarah has 10 years’ experience working various roles in the health sector. Before joining BlueSkeye AI, she previously led the roll out of Patients Know Best in the devolved nations and has contributed to the review and evaluation of the delivery of local mental health services and dermatology services in Wales. Sarah is also the Vice Chair for an all Wales skin charity, Skin Care Cymru and set up the first Cross Party Group on Skin that raises the profile of skin health in Wales. Sarah is a trustee of the Telos Foundation, an organisation that supports and encourages sustainability and growth amongst social enterprises in the UK. At BlueSkeye AI, Sarah leads the commercial and research partnerships that use BlueSkeye AI technology.
Dr Will Farr, Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, NHS Clinical Entrepreneur
Presentation title:“Tangiball”: Acceptability of a Smart Toy for the Clinical Detection of Sensori-Motor Dysfunction in Children with Possible Autism Aged 2-5
Will worked as a primary school teacher over 20 years and worked as a year 6, 5, and reception teacher. Whilst in this role he was a DH, AHT, SENCO, and co-ordinator in IT, PE, KS2, Humanities, and Literacy.
Will now works with collaborators across the University and Healthcare sectors in various Chief Investigator or Co-applicant roles, to assess and improve the diagnostic pathways for children with possible autism, digital innovation for diagnosis, and use of AI for individualised therapy.
Emilios Lemoniatis, Director, Frontline Buddy & Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist – Digital Ethics/Innovation, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Presentation title: Frontline Buddy: Peer Support for a Frontline Workforce with Organisational Data Insights
“Working in a context of limited resources and challenging circumstances, I have been drawn to the world of innovation and digital development as a way of enabling citizens to access high quality mental health services. Working clinically with complex cases has enabled me to creatively transfer my skillset into working with systems and people to acknowledge difficulties in the way we work as well as find ways to adapt and change. This has led me to my current position where I practice within a portfolio of teams with shared themes of adverse experience, neurodiversity and complexity.
I bring my experience of talking through difficulties as a psychiatrist to help people think creatively and dialogically. This helps people develop themselves and consider the materials they are working with to develop new insights and concepts. Having been on the NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur programme since 2019 both as a entrepreneur and as a mentor to start-ups in mental health, I am a go-to person to guide new developments in mental health as well as understanding and living the entrepreneurial spirit of the work involved. This has also helped me further develop my network that I have been developing nationally and internationally of people, products and companies in this field for over 15 years.”
