In a medical artificial intelligence business, the quality of your algorithms — and therefore the value of your company — depends on your access to data. In this, the health tech sector is in some ways similar to advertising and internet search industries: it has quickly learnt that data is immensely valuable.
However, on the internet, most user-generated data is used to train algorithms that encourage consumption, commerce or engagement. Health data is vastly different — it can be used for the global public good. It can help us track epidemics and prevent their spread, discover new drugs and diagnostics, and advance medical research that can help us live healthier, longer lives.
So it is imperative that our health tech industry embraces this difference.