Global Summit 2025_ First Global Summit Fuels Health Care Innovation

Health care innovators and educators from around the world kick-started their quest to change the future of medicine and medical education at the first Global Summit of the Global Consortium on Innovation and Engineering in Medicine. The summit – hosted by Carle Illinois College of Medicine – brought together medical educators, entrepreneurs, industry and government leaders, and future medical innovators on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus to collaborate on tangible advances to health care education and delivery across the globe. The event highlighted the work of engineers and physicians-in-training to prototype new solutions to revolutionize patient care.

“This is an incredible landmark event for Illinois and the world and is the next big idea in transforming medical education, innovation, and health care delivery through the intersection of engineering, medicine, artificial intelligence, and technology,” said CI MED Dean and Consortium Executive Council President Mark Cohen. “Through partnerships and collaborations in the global consortium, we are advancing the future of medical education, connecting people and data from around the world to advance medical research, and breaking down barriers to advancing and scaling medical innovations for the benefit of society.”

The Summit featured the Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge Pitch competition to showcase groundbreaking solutions to real-world health problems. Teams of medical students and engineering students focused on innovations around four central themes: AI applications to improve outcomes in rural health or underserved areas globally; solutions that improve early disease detection of chronic conditions; slowing or reversing disease progression in aging populations; and low-cost diagnostics, devices, or therapeutic solutions that can have global scalability. The top student teams were awarded funding to pilot and validate their solutions across the Consortium’s new global network of medical schools and hospitals, with insights and guidance from industry and regulatory agencies.