Dr Joel Selanikio – Physician, TED speaker, inventor

Dr. Joel Selanikio is a physician, TED speaker, inventor, emergency responder, and consultant working in the fields of technology, healthcare, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, social innovation, big data, child health, and disaster response.

A founding member of the World Health Organization’s Digital Health Roster of Experts, he is the winner of both the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award for Healthcare and the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainable Innovation for the development of the Magpi mobile data collection system, the first cloud-based application created for global health and international development.

Dr. Selanikio has consulted and/or spoken at Davos, Foo Camp, WHO, UNICEF, IFRC, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Google, DARPA, CNN, Fox News, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Royal Society of Medicine, and for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry – and has been profiled by the Guardian, Wired, Forbes, TED, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the BBC, NPR, Information Week, and the Washington Post, among many other publications.

An emergency responder and former CDC epidemiologist and outbreak investigator, he served as a consultant epidemiologist to FEMA and the DC Department of Health for the COVID-19 response over 2020-22. In December 2014 – January 2015, he was the lead physician at the IMC Ebola Treatment Center at Lunsar, Sierra Leone.

As an officer of the Public Health Service, Dr. Selanikio served as Chief of Operations for the HHS Secretary’s Emergency Command Center after the 9/11 attacks.

He has received awards from both his alma maters, Brown University Medical School and Haverford College, for his humanitarian work.

Testimonials

One of the most engaging, thought-provoking, dynamic, and relevant speakers I have had the pleasure to watch. Relevant, entertaining and insightful …. when you watch him speak, you can immediately see the passion he has for the topic. He has a knack for connecting little-known facts with the topic at hand that leaves the audience in awe… The attendees continued talking about the concepts he presented for days after the event. He is hands-down one of the best keynote speakers I have watched in my career.

Carlos Garmendia, Associate Director, Biogen

Joel gave an outstanding presentation at our annual partners’ meeting in 2017, speaking to the top 200 leaders in our company. His vision of the impact technology will have on healthcare was compelling … I’d highly recommend Joel for anyone who is looking for a speaker that will present a compelling vision of the future of healthcare.

John Bienko, Principal, ZS Associates

Selected Recent Presentations 

Keynote at Medstar Board Retreat (Washington 2023)

Keynote at American Hospital Association Executive Retreat (Phoenix 2023)

John Dolan Memorial Lecture (Virginia Hospital Center 2023)

HFMA Annual Conference Keynote (Denver 2022): From Healthcare to Selfcare

Ruth Sauber Distinguished Alumni Lecture (Brown University 2021): “Doctor You: How Technology Will Give Us More Health with Less Health Care”

Keynote at Portuguese Cardiology Congress (virtual 2020): Collaboration and Medicine in the Time of COVID

Keynote at AAO Annual Conference (virtual 2020): Pandemics, Science & Medicine: Challenges, Science, and Medicine, 1918-2020

Keynote at International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (San Antonio 2019): “Technological Change and the Future of Healthcare (and Simulation)”

Keynote at Genentech Annual Meeting (California 2019): Artificial Intelligence and Health

Keynote at Mercy Health Annual Meeting (California 2019): Disruption, Health, and Healthcare

Keynote at Ireland Health Research Board Annual Conference (Dublin 2018): “Technology, Disruption and Health Research”

Presentation at European Academy of Pediatric Societies (Paris, 2018): “AI and Global Health”

Presentation at Wilton Park “AI and Global Health” (London 2018): “AI and Global Health”

Keynote at Biogen HackIT 2018 (Boston, 2018): “AI and Healthcare Disruption”

Keynote at Bayer Portugal event (Lisbon, 2018): “Collaboration for Health in a Digital Age”

Presentation at HHS Opioid Summit (Washington, 2018): “Big Data, AI, and Health”

Keynote at Bayer Portugal event (Porto, 2018): “Increasing Survival in a Digital Age”

Keynote at Genentech Annual Meeting (Santa Barbara, 2017): “AI and Healthcare: How a Century of Technology is Leading to Changes in Health and Healthcare”

Keynote at CHIME/HIMMS CIO Forum (Orlando, 2017): “The Coming Collapse of the Healthcare System”

Keynote at Pharmaceutical Management Society Association annual conference (Orlando, 2017): “The End of Healthcare? / How Information Technology Will Rapidly Change Healthcare and Increase Health”

Keynote at BeWell Conference (Lisbon, 2016): “Big Data and Healthcare”

Keynote at Orthopedic Research Society Annual Meeting (Orlando, 2016): “Big Data, Healthcare, and Research”

Keynote at Novartis MS Days (Istanbul, 2016): “Big Data and Health”