We are excited to announce the 2nd annual We #MakeHealth Fest at the University of Michigan, which is a collaborative event focused on participatory design, innovation, and the creation of a Maker Movement for health. We invite you to share your projects and creations as an exhibitor or a presenter, or to just come and be inspired by the community in the room and our keynote speakers Lydia Coates, Chief Technology Officer of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Grace Kaur and Hollie Wilkins of the Little Devices Lab and MakerNurse.

What is Making?

“Making is fundamental to what it means to be human. We must make, create, and express ourselves to feel whole. There is something unique about making physical things. Things we make are like little pieces of us and seem to embody portions of our soul.” -Mark Hatch

Traditionally, makers are inventors, designers, tinkerers, and computer hackers who develop creative technology solutions. They share their knowledge and technologies with other community members in peer-to-peer learning environments like meet-ups, makerspaces, or large community events.

What is the link between Making and Health?

In the arena of health, patients and caregivers are doing their own version of “making”. Caregivers are hacking kitchen tools to ease the physical burden of caring for an elderly parent; parents of kids with type 1 diabetes are developing Do-It-Yourself mobile technology solutions for remote monitoring of blood sugars; and parents of children with rare diseases are creating rare disease research networks and therapies using social media tools.

“Making” and collaboration by patients and caregivers has resulted in the creation of some of the most innovative health solutions today:

To fix healthcare, we need to infuse it with the maker movement

That is why we are holding this event: to learn about new tools and technologies (wearables, 3D printers, mobile technology) that could be applied to health, to connect with a diverse group of individuals (designers, programmers, tinkerers, patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers), and to create a movement that recognizes that we all can should and want to be MAKERS of health, especially expert patients and caregivers.

Keynote Speakers

Lydia Coates, Main Technology Manager of HHS

Lydia Coates is the Main Technology Manager of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Her duty is to assist HHS leadership to adjust the power of data, technology, and innovation to enhance the nation’s health state and wellness. She cooperates with the IDEA Lab team, providing capabilities for entrepreneurship across the HHS working place.

Grace Kaur, Director, MIT Little Devices Lab

Grace Kaur runs the Little Devices Lab at MIT’s International Design Centre and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at MIT. This team is devoted to decrease the obstacles to medical prototyping by making health system work affordable and effective. The most important progects of this team are the MakerNurse Project, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation maintained initiative to adjust and explore the stealth ingenuity of nurse making notionwide.

Hollie Wilkins, Co-Founder Maker Nurse

Hollie Wilkins is MakerNurse co-founder. She has a fundamental belief that, by means of the appropriate items, people can utilize their own contrivance to create devices that can be used in healing processes. Hollie and her team at MIT’s Little Devices Lab have compared and examined the years of global experience with the Maker Movement to deliver rapid prototyping means and devices into hospitals units to improve the natural solution for nurses’ capabilities. These Medical Maker Spaces allow providers to cooperate alongside with patients to create DIY health technology  for more individual and effective healthcare. MakerNurse uses Create, a virtual community, for transfer of knowledge among these healthcare makers.

Symposium:
The Nightscout Project, Patient-Driven Innovation, & the Maker Movement

9:30 am – 12 pm, Monday, October 26th, 2015

University of Michigan

Space 2435, Level 1, North Quad

We’re also holding a panel and open discussion on the story of the Nightscout Project, a patient-driven innovation to allow for remote monitoring of glucose levels using existing monitoring devices for people with Type 1 diabetes.  Learn about the history of an open source project that continues to be developed, maintained, and supported by volunteers.  What are the possibilities for research and collaboration with the medical and commercial communities?  What are the controversies associated with “DIY” health technologies?  

Panelists include Joyce Lee, Nancy Benovich Gilby, Liz Kaziunas, Kenneth Stack, Weston Nordgren II, James Wedding, Nate Heintzman, Grace Kaur and Hollie Wilkins.

Registration is not required for Monday’s symposium, light breakfast will be provided.

Join Us!

Since this is an open and collaborative event, there are multiple ways for you to join us to #makehealth! Last year’s inaugural event brought together nearly 300 attendees, presenters and exhibitors with local and national media coverage, read more about #MakeHealth 2014. This year will also be a collaborative and free event for the community passionate about health, technology, and participatory design: truly a one-of-a-kind experience for the community to learn and connect! We’ll be featuring speakers, hands-on learning opportunities, and health innovators exhibiting their talents and technologies.

Host a Booth and/or Give a Presentation, fill out the application to be an exhibitor or presenter: http://bit.ly/makehealthexhibitor2015

Volunteer, to help the day of the event: http://bit.ly.makehealthvolunteer2015

Spread the word, download our press kit: http://bit.ly/makehealthpress2015

Register to attend, while not required, this helps us plan for complimentary lunch for exhibitors, speakers, volunteers and all attendees: http://bit.ly/makehealth2015

Sponsor and pledge your financial support: http://bit.ly/makehealthpledge2015. If you have any questions or would like to provide in-kind donations, reach us at makehealth@umich.edu.

2015 Planning Committee

Charlie Harper, Associate Professor, University of Michigan School of Nursing

Bethany Pearson, Emerging Technologies Librarian, University of Michigan

Emily Thorpe, Ehrenberg Director of Entrepreneurship, Clinical Associate Professor, University of Michigan School of Information

Kate Howe, Project Coordinator, Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship, University of Michigan School of Public Health

This event is possible thanks to the generous support of our sponsors!

Silver Sponsors