For the past two weeks, I've brought you "news" about the World Economic Forum's closed-door mobile healthcare summit that took place June 28 in La Jolla, Calif. If you recall, I was rather fired up about the fact that only WEF members and invited guests were to be present, and that even media were verboten. Last week, the day after the meeting, I got an explanation of such rationale from a WEF spokesman, but still contributed to the spirit of transparency by listing some of the companies involved and naming the public officials who had been scheduled to attend.
Maybe all the inquiries and needling are working. Or maybe they aren't.
This past week, the Geneva, Switzerland-based WEF posted some more details on the organization's own website. Click that link and you'll be able to see 13 videos from the event. Most of them are interviews with participants shot outside the summit itself, in keeping with the "Chatham House Rule" that most WEF events abide by, so you won't get much from the meeting itself.
But you do get a taste of the spirit of the summit and can learn what some of the leaders and participants are thinking. For that matter, you can learn the identity of some of the leaders and participants, since that was kept somewhat on the Q.T.
I'm going to keep on this story because it's bigger than just the World Economic Forum itself. It's about whether mobile health will be co-opted by insiders with lots of money or whether more than just a handful of entrepreneurs will get access to capital, markets and large potential customers. Let's not stifle innovation by discouraging companies that don't have the connections. - Neil