Work In Health Foundation

Author: Tina Louhichi

  • Partner with WorkInHealth Foundation to bridge the health innovation talent gap 

    Partner with WorkInHealth Foundation to bridge the health innovation talent gap 

    Interested in shaping the future of healthcare and making an impact through collaborative campaigns? 

    The healthcare industry is evolving rapidly, but a growing skills gap threatens its sustainability and potential for innovation. The WorkInHealth Foundation, created by EIT Health, is tackling this challenge head-on by connecting organisations with top talent and driving initiatives that inspire the next generation to pursue careers in healthcare.

    Through the Unleash Your Impact campaign, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), we supported health innovators with cloud resources, mentorship, and visibility to scale their impact. This is just one example of how collaboration can fuel transformation in the healthcare sector.

    Why partner with us?

    By joining forces with WorkInHealth Foundation, you can:
    ✅ Boost the image of healthcare careers and attract top talent
    ✅ Engage in high-impact campaigns that showcase your organisation’s commitment to innovation
    ✅ Support initiatives that equip professionals with the digital and technical skills needed for the future of healthcare
    ✅ Connect with a network of like-minded organisations shaping the next generation of healthcare professionals

    Want to be part of this mission?

    Let’s work together to put impactful actions in place, helping healthcare grow, thrive, and remain a top career choice in Europe.

    Join us. Shape the future of healthcare. Make an impact.

  • WorkInHealth Foundation at the Deep Tech Skills Days 2024 

    WorkInHealth Foundation at the Deep Tech Skills Days 2024 

    On 12 and 13 November 2024 in Warsaw, Poland, the WorkInHealth Foundation had the pleasure of taking part in the annual Deep Tech Skills Days 2024, organized by the EIT Deep Tech Talent initiative. This exciting event brought together deep tech enthusiasts, experts and innovators from all over Europe. 

     
    As a sponsor of the event alongside Amazon Web Services and EIT Health, we were delighted to take part in this event whose aim was to encourage and accelerate the next generation of deep tech talent! 
     

    Find out more about the other sponsors and photos from the event here.  

    A look back at Deep Tech Skills Days 2024 

    Over the course of two days, more than 250 deep tech players, including member organizations of the Deep Tech Talent Initiative (Pledgers), external stakeholders from ministries, universities, research institutes and private sector representatives from all over Europe came together at several conferences to discuss deep tech. 

     
    Centred on innovation, emerging technologies and the training of talent in deep tech fields, the conference focused on training in areas such as AI, data management and cloud computing skills, which are increasingly crucial in today’s healthcare landscape. 

    By offering these training opportunities, the EIT Deep Tech Talent initiative aims to empower healthcare professionals with the tools they need to improve patient outcomes, reduce diagnostic errors, and enhance treatment processes.  

    “Deep tech is a way of solving current problems that exist in Europe and the world. Deep tech can help us achieve a better future for future generations […]” according to Pamela Krzypkowska, Director of Department of Research and Innovation, Ministry of Digital Affairs in Poland. 

    You can find out more about the programme and the speakers present on the day of the event here.  

    Talent Skills gap: Solutions to overcome it! 

    Faced with the talent skills gap in healthcare, training opportunities to update the skills of professionals and equip them with the tools they need are becoming a necessity. 

    To achieve this, a number of initiatives exist: 

    • EIT Health education programmes, designed specifically to bridge this skills gap. In the evolving context of digital transformation, the aim of these programmes is to train healthcare professionals in the key skills needed to meet today’s challenges. Like the Certified Innovation Path programme, which aims to deepen knowledge in the field of healthcare by focusing on new trends in the sector, for which applications are open until 29 January 2025. 
    • The EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative Call for Training Proposals, for organisations wishing to collaborate in the creation of new programmes aimed at training one million people in deep tech in Europe. The initiative is funding a number of projects committed to pioneering the future of deep tech education and skills development across Europe by distributing a total amount of up to €2 million. 

    The 2024 winners were unveiled at the Deep Tech Skills Days: 15 project consortia, comprising 42 organisations from 21 countries, were selected and received a total funding of €2,203,391.50 to create and deliver their training and skills development programmes! Their objective: to train at least 7,500 additional learners! You can find out more about the winners here.   

    A partnership with AWS based on shared values 

    In keeping with this aim of strengthening and developing deep tech skills in the healthcare sector in Europe, the WorkInHealth Foundation and Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined forces in 2024. 

    According to Urška Bux, Program Manager of WorkInHealth Foundation, “The combined efforts of the WorkinHealth Foundation’s expertise and network, together with AWS’s upskilling programs and technological capabilities, create an environment where the healthcare sector can thrive with a future-ready, skilled workforce.” 

    Our entities were committed to working actively to bridge the skills gap in healthcare by upskilling and reskilling healthcare professionals, particularly in advanced technological areas. Several solutions have been put in place, and we have been lucky enough to work together on several projects such as: 

    • Agnès Guerraz Prize: Which rewarded a women healthcare entrepreneur from the EIT Health Women Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, in cloud credits, to help them bring their ideas into reality with their services. 
    • Unleash Your Impact challenge: Which aims to strengthen start-ups, project teams and innovators in the healthcare sector who are developing solutions to urgent healthcare needs. Five different teams were rewarded with AWS cloud credits. Visit our LinkedIn page to find out more about the winner.   
    • Girls Go Circular: Which is a program for young women aged 14 to 19 from all over the world who are interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, with the aim of developing their digital and entrepreneurial skills. Sponsoring the linked event, we had the chance to reveal the Girls Go Circular Student Challenge winnHER, and to announce the Audience Choice Award with AWS cloud credits: the Serbian team Equalife, composed of Teodora Radičev, Staša Aleksić and Majda Mandić, who created an AI tool who aims to prevent the misdiagnosis of women by using AI to analyse a comprehensive range of symptoms, accounting for gender differences.

    In addition, AWS propose the AWS educate platform, which lets you develop your cloud skills at your own pace, for free! 
     

    To know more about our partnership and the solutions that we have created with AWS, you can read our article here.  
     

  • WorkInHealth Foundation at the French Biotechno Forums | Oct-Nov 2024 

    WorkInHealth Foundation at the French Biotechno Forums | Oct-Nov 2024 

    On October 17th and November 25th, 2024, we had the pleasure of attending the Biotechno forums by Réseau Biotechno in Marseille and in Paris, to meet leading figures from the world of healthcare. 

     
    These forums have been held in several major French cities for over 20 years with the aim of helping the future talents of the health industry to better understand their career after graduation. 

     
    The2 7th edition of the event, which is a major meeting, is a unique opportunity to network and build bridges between young researchers from the academic world and professionals and employers from the health business world. 
    On the agenda: conferences, roundtables, workshops, resume correction… formats tailored to boosting careers and meeting professionals.

    On site, they had the opportunity to make contact with leading companies in biotechnology, but they could also attend several conferences on the challenges and opportunities in the sector and thematic roundtables to explore the various possible career paths they can choose. And because actions are better than words, they also had the chance to participate in various workshops to help them define their future career path, for example, through sessions of resume correction. 
    If you are interested in participating in the forum next year, you can find more information about the forums here.   

    Accompanied by EIT Health France, we had the opportunity to interact with inquiring attendees at our booth and present the challenges and actions of EIT Health France and WorkInHealth Foundation to an interested and curious public during a short presentation pitch.  

    On site: several leading figures from the world of healthcare, including students, researchers and healthcare professionals, were on hand for discussions and meetings. More than 600 people were present at the forums in both cities, demonstrating the dedication and motivation of today’s young talent. 

    We also had the opportunity to promote our upcoming 6th Career Fair planned for 2025, whose long-term objective is to close the talent gap in the healthcare sector by networking young talent with recruiters. By being online, the event allows participants to plan one-to-one meetings with the chosen recruiters and take part in expert-led sessions on different topics to improve their knowledge of the sector and become more attractive on the job market. 

    If you are interested in the event, you can fill in this form now to be contacted about Career Fair news => Stay tuned for the next Career Fair! 
    The exact dates will be announced shortly.  

    We would like to extend our warmest thanks to the Biotechno forums for the invitation and the opportunities they afford us. 

  • Leadership in Healthcare: An Exclusive Interview with Eva McLellan, General Manager at Roche 

    Leadership in Healthcare: An Exclusive Interview with Eva McLellan, General Manager at Roche 

    “The leader’s job is not to fix the system, but to see the potential and the opportunity, to help people see a common vision, and then to guide and walk with people to make that vision a reality.” 

    This notion is powerfully embodied in our new podcast interview as part of the FutureHealthHERo Initiative between Eva McLellan, General Manager at Roche Slovenia, and Urška Bux, Program Manager here at the WorkInHealth Foundation. 

    Roche — a pioneering force in healthcare for over 125 years dedicated to expanding solutions for patients — aligns closely with the missions that we at WorkInHealth Foundation are committed to implementing, most notably highlighting the importance of essential soft skills, which are often overlooked in the European healthcare sector today. 

    Keys to Building Leadership Success 

    In this new and exclusive interview, Eva McLellan emphasizes the importance of strong leadership qualities, a trait which is becoming increasingly important in today’s healthcare field, and the challenges it poses to the industry. McLellan notes that while acknowledging this obstacle is highly important, as we’ve done in our most recent report, it is equally crucial to offer concrete solutions to efficiently enact change and “create an environment that is better than when you left it.” 

    Eva shares her key advice for future leaders to effectively develop their skills, stating, “Build on the shoulders of giants but also discover for yourself what effectiveness means for you and for that is put yourself in environments that stretch you beyond your comfort zone. Trust yourself that you will figure it out and surround yourself with mentors and teachers and be a good mentor and teacher to others.” She notes the importance of surrounding oneself with “good tools, good tactics, and inspiring books” as well as good people to valuably guide future leaders towards leadership success. 

    McLellan further details her main motivators that keep her sharp when leading at Roche, the importance of staying authentic, communicating clearly, and being courageous as substantial traits a leader must possess. 

    Skillful Leading in Healthcare 

    McLellan’s thorough experience in her leadership role at a well-established healthcare company has made her expertise one of the best to adhere to. During her time at Roche Slovenia, she has been a forerunner of numerous projects that have built partnerships between public and private entities within academia, the industry, and the government, such as the initiation of the Bled Institute for Leadership in Digitization and AI. 

    Our Impact 

    Our #FutureHealthHERo initiative that celebrates remarkable women in the health sector allows us to hold the space for such crucial conversations such as this, further emphasizing our mission of closing the skills gap within the healthcare industry.  

    Similarly, our report released with the European Investment Fund, “Addressing skills needs in the European health sector”, offers specific resolutions for tackling the challenges discussed with Eva and highlights our bolstering dedication to improving the healthcare sector.   

    Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/6cII8u1KwdE 

  • Inspiring future health innovators: Girls Go Circular program

    Inspiring future health innovators: Girls Go Circular program

    For its 4th edition, the Girls Go Circular program of this year focused on women in AI : Driving Empowerment and Innovation.   

    As a sponsor of the event under the framework of its upskilling partnership with AWS, the WorkInHealth Foundation traveled to Budapest on October 10th to participate in the event. As a representative, our Program Manager Urška Bux had the opportunity to present WorkInHealth and its activities to an audience of interested and motivated young women, highlighting programs such as the FutureHealthHERo initiative, where we are tackling the image, talent and skills gap in healthcare, inviting women to join in, too.  

    From its start, the aim of the Girls Go Circular program via the EIT initiative has been to encourage young women across Europe to develop skills in the digital and circular economy. Sadly, still under-represented in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Girls Go Circular aims to promote gender equality in these sectors. The main idea is to empower girls to develop digital & entrepreneurial skills. Through its actions and program, Girls Go Circular has enabled more than 40,000 schoolgirls aged 14 to 19 across Europe to acquire digital and entrepreneurial skills in just 3 years.  

    Women Got Talent  

    This year, the finale and the winnHER reveal of the Girls Go Circular Student Challenge 2024 was held during the event. The aim of this year’s challenge was to develop participants’ knowledge of AI, push their creativity to the limit and boost their problem-solving skills. For this challenge, the participants were asked to come up with an idea for an AI tool to help reduce inequalities between men and women in the field of their choice (education, employment, science, etc.) and to present it in front of a jury and the previous years’ winner of the challenge : Antonia Ciappara from the Rocky CO2 team.  
    We can congratulate Sophie and Ikran of the Finland and Italy team, for their project “On Her Care” which won the challenge.  
    Their project started from a simple observation: women, especially ones of racial and ethnic minority, are 20 to 30 percent more likely to be misdiagnosed. They both imagine an AI tool capable of centralizing the information needed to understand or treat a diagnosis through: Only focusing on women’s specificities, combining existing, similar test results, diagnosing by recognizing the pattern of symptoms, and by continuously updating the app with new medical research. 

    WiH and AWS: Proud Sponsor of the Audience Choice Award  

    During the event, we also had the opportunity to present the Audience Choice Award, decided by more than 7,400 voters. Thanks to this award, we encouraged girls to transform from dreamers into do-ers by bringing their ideas into reality. The winner was gifted 6000 USD Cloud Credits sponsored by Amazon Web Services (AWS). A special thank you to the AWS team for working with us on this project.  

    This collaboration has created greater synergy and enabled the amplification of the impact that we can achieve together.  
    We can congratulate the winning team Equalife, and their members: Teodora Radičev, Staša Aleksić and Majda Mandić from Serbia, who have also created an AI tool capable of making a diagnosis by understating the symptoms without taking gender into account.  
    The teams in 2nd and 3rd place were also awarded 2000 USD in Cloud Credits each. 

    Our Partnership  

    This event was also an opportunity for us to officially present our new partnership with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform for the first time. This collaboration was set up to combine our resources, strengths, and ultimately, close the gap between available talent and the expectations of the medical sector. Thanks to AWS, you can have access for free to more than 400 courses on different subjects for beginners.  
    You can find more information about our partnership in our new press release !  

  • WorkInHealth Foundation and Amazon Web Services announce their partnership 

    WorkInHealth Foundation and Amazon Web Services announce their partnership 

    The WorkInHealth Foundation and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have entered a Powerhouse Partnership to work together to tackle the Talent Gap in Healthcare. Based on AWS advanced solutions and WorkInHealth Foundation’s expertise and network, this partnership will help to close the gap in the health sector by upskilling and reskilling talent, particularly in skills that are all too often absent from profiles today: digital and AI.  

    For several months now, the healthcare sector has been under threat. The gap between the skills of current and future profiles and the demands of the sector is far too wide. While the industry is growing fast (55% of life sciences companies plan to hire this year), 80% of pharma-manufacturing companies are already facing a deep skills mismatch. The urgency is clear: without immediate change, the sustainability and growth potential of Europe’s healthcare industry is at risk. Yet only a third of companies have launched retraining efforts, with an average investment six times lower than in other high-tech sectors. 

    Faced with this situation, the WorkInHealth Foundation and AWS have decided to join forces to tackle the talent gap that threatens growth, competitiveness, and innovation in the healthcare sector. 

    This partnership is based on a common goal and shared values: helping people to live longer, healthier lives through digital innovation, which is crucial to transforming healthcare by providing better, faster, and broader services. 

    By partnering with the WorkInHealth Foundation, AWS aims to leverage from this partnership to train people in digital skills, accelerate progress in healthcare, and prepare individuals for careers in the sector, moving closer to its goal of training 29 million people by 2025. 

    EIT Health and the WorkInHealth Foundation are embedding their roadmaps into larger political agenda to offer a unique space for industries and companies like AWS to unite forces with other complementary corporates. As an ecosystem backed by the European Union, we give AWS a unique proactive stance in solving a major societal issue and provide it a neutral ground to be an actor of change. We empower and federate collective action at sector-level, thus supporting the health sector as a whole, which in turns obviously benefits individual organisations with a larger, more qualified, and fit-for-purpose talent pool entering the sector. We generate business intelligence and activate our network to support AWS shift towards digital health systems, with patient in a centre of transformation, and support them in this transformation and its consequences on jobs, talent pool and skills. 

    At the same time, AWS, as a knowledge partner and ambassador, brings us invaluable insights from the frontlines and help us funds major projects, such as: 

    First, AWS is committed to promoting women’s empowerment by taking part in several of our initiatives, such as: 

    • The Agnès Guerraz Prize, awarded to one of the participants in the Women Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. AWS sponsored the winner and all participants with cloud credits, to help them bring their ideas into reality with their services. 
    • The FutureHealthHERo campaign by highlighting their amazing digital Health HERoes  
    • Cross-KIC initiatives like Girls Go Circular, that supports talented young women (14-19 years old) with team prizes, as they explore tech, innovation, and STEM in yearly challenges. Furthermore, prizes are invitation to dream big, experiment, and turn bold ideas into reality.  

    Also, AWS participates in our Career Fairs, including the next one in January 2025, which aim to connect talent with recruiters through one-to-one meetings.  

    We can also mention the i-Days, a European student competition that invites them to think of a solution to face a real-life healthcare problem, whose final will be held in Budapest in November 2024. During the event, AWS will be a network partner, offering prizes to all the winners from the 25 countries, as well as to the sponsor of the European final, where it will sit on the jury and award prizes to the three best ideas. 

    Finally, WorkInHealth foundation and AWS are both sponsoring the Deep Tech Talent Initiative programme, created with the ambition of training more than one million people in digital skills by 2025. 

    With this upskilling objective, AWS has launched its Educate Platform for acquiring cloud and other digital skills for free! 

    This synergistic partnership raises awareness of transformative strategies, which can be seamlessly integrated into learning experiences, fireside chats, insightful reports, and more. 

    Watch a short video here to learn more about this partnership. 

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    About WorkInHealth Foundation 

    Created by EIT Health, the WorkInHealth Foundation addresses the evident and growing skills and talent gaps within the healthcare industry across Europe. The talent shortage threatens the sustainability and growth potential of the healthcare industry. Therefore, addressing it is of key strategic importance. The WorkInHealth Foundation works across four main activity areas: anticipation (using business intelligence to get ahead of skill needs), attraction (transforming the health industry with new talent, EU-wide), training (futureproofing through tailored upskilling and reskilling programmes), matching (leveraging AI platforms and services to align talent with employers). Through the Skills Observatory, the WorkInHealth Foundation identifies emerging skill shortages and guides tailored education programmes, ensuring a capable and adaptable health workforce. 
    For more information: www.workinhealth-foundation.org 
    Follow us on our LinkedIn: WorkInHealth Foundation ; and on X: @WorkInHealthFdn. 

    About EIT Health  

    EIT Health is one of the ‘Knowledge and Innovation Communities’, or KICs, on the theme of health and active ageing, launched and funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), an EU body, since 1 January 2015. EIT Health is a Horizon 2020 instrument. EIT Health aims to boost innovation by integrating the three aspects of the knowledge triangle (Innovation; Education; Business), to develop solutions to emerging societal challenges, to develop products and services that meet consumer needs and, more generally, to play a pioneering role in strengthening the competitiveness of European industry, improving the quality of life of Europeans and ensuring the sustainability of healthcare systems in the face of the growing burden of the cost of chronic diseases linked to ageing. EIT Health is made up of 7 geographical nodes spread across Europe, bringing together more than 130 partners from industry, academia, and clusters in the MedTech, BioTech and DigiTech fields. 
    For more information: www.eithealth.eu 
    Follow us on our LinkedIn: EIT Health France ; and on X: @EIThealth_FR. 

    About Amazon Web Services (AWS) 

    Launched in 2006, AWS delivers business-critical infrastructure services in the form of web services, now known as cloud computing. It provides an ultra-reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in a cloud that hundreds of thousands of businesses in more than 190 countries around the world have already adopted. With data centres in the US, Europe, Singapore and Japan, this cost-effective, resilient, open, flexible, and secure platform works for customers in all sectors. 
    For more information: www.aws.amazon.com 

    Press contacts 

    EIT Health France 

    Fanny Husson, Communication Lead EIT Health France 
    fanny.husson@eithealth.eu 

    Jérôme Fabiano, Deputy Director EIT Health France 
    jerome.fabiano@eithealth.eu