Australian Cancer Innovation Initiative - Phase 1 Discovery

You're invited to help us craft a vision for cancer innovation in Australia. Cancer is the number one killer in Australia with over 47,000 deaths last year alone and an estimated 1 in 3 Australians will be diagnosed with some form of cancer before the age of 75. In Australia, we invest millions in cancer research all aiming to find new treatments and early detection mechanisms. But what about how someone experiences the journey from pre-diagnosis to post treatment? How about their family, friends or co-workers? What about clinicians and nurses? What are the big challenges not being addressed and how can we find new ways to innovate? What role can we play as designers, developers, advocates, networkers, investors? We invite you to spend some time with us to think about these questions and more to help craft a vision for how we can accelerate meaningful change that impacts millions of lives. We don’t know what the exact approach should be, or what the mission will be. But we see an exciting opportunity to bring together a diverse group of passionate and dedicated individuals who can help shape an Australian cancer innovation initiative. Here is what we have planned for the opening "Discovery" session: 2.30pm  Why we're here. Who's in the room and why each person has decided to take part 2.45pm  The cancer experience map (from different perspectives - patient, clinician, family, carer, co-worker) 3.30pm  How might we? Question generation activity. Where are the gaps? Who is operating in this space already. 4.15pm Prioritise questions. Where should we focus our efforts? 5.10pm Final thoughts and next steps 5.30pm End Who has inspired us? We are hugely inspired by the Cancer Innovation Challenge in Scotland - £1M project funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to encourage Innovation Centres in Scotland to work in partnership to help Scotland become a world leading carer for people with cancer through open innovation funding calls for data science solutions. We are also inspired by the Australian disability tech accelerator Remarkable - a 16-week program for early stage startups looking to build sustainable enterprises that have a big social impact. As well as it's accelerator program, Remarkables runs annual design-athons to help stimulate new ideas. The many great hackathons running around Australia in the last few years - Techfugees, Chronic Pain Hackathon, Hack for Homelessness.  For further information contact Margaret or Michael as per the information below.