Healthcare Design - December 2021 - 20

REVIEW
KEYNOTES
MEANINGFUL MOMENTS
AN INSPIRING VISION for the future was painted
by Kate O'Neill, CEO of KO Insights and author
of " Tech Humanist, " in her opening keynote session,
" A Future So Bright. "
O'Neill said it's not uncommon to anticipate
a future with scary, overwhelming scenarios-
more pandemics, climate disasters, and political
and geopolitical unrest. And emerging technology
is often cited as a contributor to such fears.
Instead, she said, technology offers tremendous
opportunity to help solve human problems
while offering better human connectedness.
Rather than fear the future, she asked attendees
to think how they can help humanity prepare
for an increasingly technology and data-driven
future, where the physical world connects to the
digital world. " How can you think more excitedly
about how you'll use technology to create
more meaningful spaces? " she said.
To help guide that journey, she offered three
pillars for bringing a brighter future to the built
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DECEMBER 2021
environment: building our best technology,
growing our best businesses, and becoming our
best selves.
Noting that part of what it means to be human
is to crave meaning, O'Neill said it's important
to frame technology through this lens, focusing
on how technology and data can make the world
better for people both now and in the future. In
healthcare, she said, that may mean thinking
about the best futures for the most people.
Discussing how to grow better businesses,
O'Neill said the focus shouldn't be on technology
transformation but " data transformation "
that uses human data to optimize business. She
added that when attendees hear the word " data "
they should think " people, " including their motivations
and desires.
Looking to create the best technology, O'Neill
said technology solutions shouldn't be viewed as
either good or bad, but they do have risks. " Humans
cannot leave meaning up to the machines, "
HCDMAGAZINE.COM
she said. For example, subtle nuances are not
a strong suit of artificial intelligence, which
O'Neill illustrated by showing a slide with images
of puppies and muffi ns, many of which looked
similar and would be hard for a computer to fi gure
out. Humans, however, can draw on sense
memory to make contextual decisions to fi gure
out what's what.
To get to our best technology, she added, we
must integrate the best of technology with the
best of humans to build " empathic, meaningful
human experiences. " Furthermore, she noted,
it's important to have diverse perspectives involved
to make inclusive human experiences.
" Machines are what we encode of ourselves, " including
our biases and values, she added.
In closing, O'Neill reiterated that a tech-driven
future with more meaningful and integrated
experiences shouldn't be scary. " We have agency
and power-it will be what we make it, " she said.
-Anne DiNardo, executive editor
INDUSTRY VOICES
THE CENTER for Health Design held its annual
Awards and Changemaker Keynote, where
Dr. George Tingwald, administrative director,
medical planning at Stanford Health
Care, was named the 2021 Changemaker, and
Frank Zilm, Chester Dean director of the Institute
of Health and Wellness Design at the
University of Kansas School of Architecture
& Design, received the Russ Coile Lifetime
Achievement Award. Read highlights of their
Q+A conversation at HCDmagazine.com.
http://www.HCDmagazine.com http://www.HCDMAGAZINE.COM
Healthcare Design - December 2021

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