Picture 1. Opening Session
The advent of an aging society and continuously growing up on the costs of medical care are troublesome around the globe. Coupled with the existence of the Covid-19 pandemic, it unsurprisingly affected almost every industry and global economic development especially in the healthcare domain. Meanwhile, the blooming of digital technology is playing a very important role in the development of innovative technology including in the medical field. Therefore, smart digitalized healthcare technology has become a powerful key to actively driving every country forward in this struggling time. Regarding this, Medical Device Innovation Center (MDIC), National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) has been aware of a major change and challenge in medical devices, also healthcare related industry due to the pandemic. The "2021 International Conference on Future Healthcare and Economic Development" was held from September 23 to 29 to support the uses of smart innovation and technology to apply for Digital Healthcare Revolution in the Post Covid-19 era.
Picture 2. Online Participation (Day-1)
Since the Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to adapt our lifestyle into the way that we called "New Normal"; The event was organized on both onsite and online platforms. The themes of this event included telemedicine, digital health, and AI, AIoT, smart robots for healthcare and rehabilitation, smart long term care technology for the elderly, precision medicine in dental applications, Biotechnology, marketing and commercialization in medical devices, technology transfer, etc., which attracted more than one hundred participants from 15 countries, especially from new Southward countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, India, etc.
With the strong collaborations between NCKU and international partners, MDIC had invited honorable speakers who are academia and industry experts in medical device and healthcare-related fields in Taiwan. Also, from other ten countries apart from Taiwan included Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Italy, the Netherlands, the United States, and Japan, to share their experience in medical research and development no matter from university or industry sides. Besides, the onsite participants could also learn and gain more hands-on experience with smart medical or healthcare devices.
