WHO's director-general to talk COVID-19 at Collision's virtual conference
The tech conference announces the most powerful man in the medical world as a speaker at next month's event.
The WHO's director-general is scheduled to speak at the virtual conference.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, will speak about the COVID-19 pandemic and the significance of health-related technology during the Collision from Home conference next month, the event's organizers said Wednesday.
The announcement follows the director-general's pledge on Tuesday to keep leading the fight against the coronavirus pandemic after US President Donald Trump suspended funding to the WHO and threatened to quit altogether.
Trump lashed out at the WHO this week, calling it a "puppet of China" and issuing an open letter to the body about its perceived failings in handling the crisis. In spite of the president's threats, the WHO's members passed a landmark resolution on Tuesday about uniting countries to fight COVID-19.
We, @WHO, will never, ever give up.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 20, 2020
Our focus is fighting the #COVID19 pandemic with every tool at our disposal.
Our focus is on saving lives.#WHA73
Paddy Cosgrave, founder of the Toronto-based Collision and its European sister event Web Summit, said in a statement that he was "humbled" to welcome the director-general, who he described as "one of the most important people in the world right now." Health tech will be a major focus of this year's conference, which will run virtually for the first time from June 23 to 25 and has thus been renamed Collision at Home. The conference will also feature a number of other prominent medics including Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association.
"This global pandemic has created a warlike scenario where the health industry is in an arms race, except the arms are not weapons -- they are medical advancements that will save lives, such as tracking systems for contact tracing, and super fast testing," said Cosgrave. "I believe the tech advancements we'll make over the next year and into 2021 will be incredible, and change the way healthcare is run forever."
