Some of the best and brightest medical and innovative minds from around Australia and the world will present at a major conference in Liverpool today.
The HIP (Health Innovation Precincts) 2018 Conference will bring together national and international health and medical experts, thought leaders and government representatives to identify opportunities to improve the design, governance and investment attraction of Australian health innovation precincts.
David Borger, Executive Director of the Western Sydney Business Chamber, said, "Health innovation precincts are the new job drivers of the future and we need to ensure we invest to capitalise on the job opportunities for the next generation.
"Innovation precincts such as the ones at Liverpool and Westmead create high value jobs and generate significant economic activity for Western Sydney.
"There is so much potential for these precincts here in Sydney to develop and flourish but we must first understand successful health innovation precincts around the world and how we can apply some of those guidelines here," Mr Borger said.
Ron Dizy, the Managing Director from one of the world's leading innovation precincts, MaRs Discovery District in Canada, said, "Inventions are wonderful – but unless they are adopted, there is no impact.
"At MaRS, we have found that most of the barriers to the adoption of innovation are fundamentally related to how stakeholders in something complex, like a health system, inter-relate. Properly formed innovation hubs are designed to address these 'wicked problems'," Mr Dizy said.
"Innovation hubs and precincts offer a neutral space where key stakeholders can design and test solutions to these difficult problems.
"I have yet to meet anyone who is opposed to innovation. But everyone looks at innovation from their own perspective and through the lens of their own incentive system – this is why real change can be so challenging, even when everyone agrees it is necessary," he said.
The Western Sydney Business Chamber's National Health Innovation Precincts Conference is at the William Inglis Hotel, Liverpool.
