Speakers

Jay Olshansky
Jay Olshansky received his PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago in 1984. He is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Chief Scientist at Lapetus Solutions, Inc. The focus of his research to date has been on estimates of the upper limits to human longevity, exploring the health and public policy implications associated with individual and population aging, forecasts of the size, survival, and age structure of the population, pursuit of the scientific means to slow aging in people, and global implications of the re-emergence of infectious and parasitic diseases.

James Zou
James Zou is an assistant professor of biomedical data science and, by courtesy, of CS and EE at Stanford University. He works on making AI more trustworthy, reliable and fair. He is particularly interested in developing AI to improve health outcomes, enable biotech discoveries, and make medical care more accessible. His group develops theoretical foundations and new algorithms and also deploys these new methods in hospitals and the biotech industry. James has received a Sloan Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, Chan-Zuckerberg Investigator award, faculty awards from Google, Tencent and Amazon, and multiple best paper awards.

Candice Smith
Candice Smith is the founder and CEO of Caregiven, a mobile app and platform that guides and empowers individuals to skillfully support the needs and wishes of an aging or ailing loved-one so that everyone involved benefits from greater peace of mind and better physical, emotional and financial health.  Candice founded the company after caring for her father during his final years while also trying to manage her career and being the best mother, she could.

Desiree Wagner
Desiree is a Senior Partner Success Manager at Plug and Play, the world’s largest global innovation platform. Here she operates with some of the largest insurers, reinsurers and brokers in the world including Munich Re, Unum, Aon, Swiss Re, Sanlam and many more. In her role, Desiree is responsible for the execution of innovation strategies within Europe, South Africa and North America.

Desiree holds a Master Degree in Business Administration from the University of Bern and prior worked for the Innovation as well as Leadership Development Departments of Baloise, a multi-national Swiss Insurer.

Daisy Li
Daisy Li is a Partner Success Manager at Plug and Play, the world’s largest global innovation platform. Here she operates with some of the largest insurers, reinsurers and brokers in the world including Munich Re, Swiss Re, State Farm and more. She helps transform and execute corporate innovation initiatives with the help of startups. Before joining Plug and Play, Daisy has acquired several years of business development and corporate partnership experience, working in both China and the U.S, in the international trading and finance service industry. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Trade and Economy from the Beijing Technology and Business University.

Alex Tran
Alex Tran is currently a principal at Plug and Play Ventures focused on early stage investment and corporate innovation. His focus areas are across digital health, insurtech, fintech, enterprise-tech, and pharma. Prior to venture capital he was a director for two diagnostic centers that brought the first multi-positional MRI units to northern California.

Robert Eaton
Robert Eaton, FSA, is a principal at Milliman. In his capacity as a consultant Robert works with insurtech companies in the life, long-term care, and caregiving support space, with product ideation and development. Robert is an active SOA volunteer, supporting insurtech efforts, conducting research, and serving on the Board of Directors.

Vince Bodnar
Vince is an actuary and is recognized as one of the leading long-term care insurance experts in the country, having worked with such products since the 1980s. He has helped insurers and regulators develop innovative solutions for new products and in-force block management. Vince was recently named one of the “20 Most Creative People in Insurance” by ThinkAdvisor.

Vince has a passion for finding and developing innovative solutions focused on making long-term care services more affordable, accessible and appropriate for older adults, particularly those solutions that promote independence and aging in place. He is the founding Chairperson of the Long-Term Care Wellness Forum, which is dedicated to introducing the long-term care insurance industry to innovative long-term care services that enable and prolong healthy aging in place. Vince maintains expertise on this subject and continues to advise both service providers and the insurance industry on the most effective ways to work together to make this vision a reality.

Vince has twice served as Chairperson of the Society of Actuaries Long Term Care Insurance Section, Chairperson of the Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference and Chairperson of the Society of Actuaries Long Term Care Think Tank.

Dale Hall
Dale Hall, FSA, CERA, MAAA, CFA is Managing Director of Research for the Society of Actuaries in Schaumburg, Illinois. In his role, Dale coordinates the SOA's strategic research partnerships, oversees SOA practice research and experience studies, and directs the SOA's data-driven research initiatives. He is a frequent speaker at insurance and retirement industry meetings, including presentations to the actuarial task forces of the NAIC and highlighting the breadth of SOA research to international audiences. He has appeared on behalf of the SOA in a variety of media outlets including coverage on C-SPAN and National Geographic's BREAKTHROUGH television series and hosts the weekly Society of Actuaries Research Insights Podcast. Prior to joining the SOA, Dale spent over 20 years in the US insurance industry, and was an active volunteer for the SOA, AAA and ACLI actuarial committees.

David Schraub
David Schraub is Senior Practice Research Actuary, responsible for the Actuarial Innovation and Technology strategic research program. In addition, he provides risk expertise to the SOA’s education (including both basic and continuing education programs) and support technology and innovation-oriented sections. Prior to joining the SOA, David worked for life insurance companies and consulting companies in various risk positions, focusing on Solvency II, NAIC ORSA and risk reporting in general. David is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, a Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst of the Society of Actuaries, an Actuaire Qualifie of the Institut des Actuaires (France) and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. He graduated from the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique, one of the French Grandes Ecoles focused on economics, statistics and actuarial sciences.

Montoux
At Montoux, we've built the worlds first AI based decision science platform for life and health insurers. Using data is so much more than analytics and fancy visualizations - we believe in using data to identify the optimal trade-off when making complex decisions.  Carriers have a wealth of internal, customer, market and demographic data available to them. Montoux provides a platform that brings this data together and unlocks its value, enabling carriers to make high-impact decisions they would otherwise be unable to.  The way we do this is by combining actuarial and data science expertise with automation and machine learning techniques - all in one game-changing platform. Our customers include several of the world’s leading insurance providers, and we currently have offices in NYC, USA; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Wellington, New Zealand.

Speaker from Montoux: Klaas-Jan Stinjen
Klaas is a co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Montoux, a rapidly growing, global software company helping multinational life insurers drive growth through decision science. Klaas is an actuary by trade, with skills in leading large diverse teams, product vision & strategy, growing & scaling businesses and providing his vast expertise in public speaking engagements.

Carrot Health (Unite Us)
Carrot Health was recently acquired by Unite Us. Unite Us is a technology company that builds coordinated care networks of health and social service providers. With Unite Us, providers across sectors can send and receive secure electronic referrals, track every person’s total health journey, and report on tangible outcomes across a full range of services in a centralized, cohesive, and collaborative ecosystem. Unite Us’ dedicated team builds authentic, lasting partnerships with local organizations to ensure their networks have a solid foundation, launch successfully, and continue to grow and thrive. This social infrastructure helps communities transform their ability to work together and measure impact at scale.

Speaker from Carrot Health: Spencer Pratt
Spencer has spent his career building and implementing data-driven solutions in the healthcare industry. He has extensive experience in the payer and provider market, having worked with health plans, health systems, and employer groups across the country for over a decade. Since Carrot Health's founding, Spencer has led high-performing teams across product development, product management, strategy, and innovation. Prior to joining Carrot Health, Spencer built the Consumer Analytics & Strategy function within the Optum Health division of UnitedHealth Group.

Hospital on Mobile
Hospital on Mobile is a personalized mobile health company. The company develops camera and voice-based vital signs monitoring solutions for disease prediction and remote patient monitoring. Using a smartphone camera or webcam, users can measure their heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation level via contact (by putting their fingertips on the camera) or contactless (selfie video) measurement options. Additionally, Hospital on Mobile can analyze users' volunteer coughs for whether an infectious disease is developed or not. All measurements and results are displayed in seconds.

Speaker from Hospital on Mobile: Ozcan Cikmaz
Ozcan Cikmaz is a serial healthcare entrepreneur with an engineering background. For his bachelor's degree, he studied system engineering and management engineering, and intelligent system engineering (didn't finish the thesis) for his master's degree. He did his MBA at ESCP Europe in Paris and multiple executive studies at different universities, including Cornell. Prior to his healthcare endeavor, he led the future planning team at NATO. He co-founded his first startup in Istanbul, a smart wearable for remote heart rate monitoring and heart attack prediction, the second startup in middle ear imaging in Paris. He also contributed to digital health projects from MIT, Oxford and Stanford. In 2018, he founded Migraine.AI to predict migraine attacks in advance and personalize the therapy. In 2020, he co-founded ViroLogic for COVID symptom prediction to contribute COVID studies. He is currently the founder and CEO of Hospital on Mobile, a software as a medical device company (SaMD) for vital signs monitoring based in Palo Alto, California.

Nymbl Science
Nymbl is the world's first and only in-home digital evidence based older adult mobility platform with validated actuarial cost savings and true population health scalability. We deploy two clinical gold standard interventions: the combination of physical exercise and concurrent cognitive challenges (dual-tasking balance training) and cognitive behavioral training (CBT) to empower older adults to real health actions. Using this combination Nymbl has been able to close the chasm of care for the 84% of older adults who are currently left out of existing solutions. Nymbl is showing that aging is not "less" starting with preventing 1 million falls. Nymbl science delivers older adult-focused, entertaining and engaging interventions that have known quality (stars for medicare), member experience (world class NPS score of 86) and cost savings outcomes (35% reduction in falls claims).

Speaker from Nymbl Science: Dr Nathan Estrada PT, DPT, MBA

Dr. Nathan Estrada is the VP of Clinical for Nymbl Science and subject matter expert on older adult balance training and fall prevention. He is a physical therapist by training and received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from University of Colorado Denver Health Science Center, where he also received the Hubert J. Levy Humanitarian Award in 2007. Professionally, he has worked in outpatient orthopedics, sports medicine and home health where he developed a passion for helping older adults participate more fully in life. He was the program manager for Senior Living at Bayada Home, where he focused on older adult population health. Dr. Estrada believes we have bought into the lie that aging is less, and that health decline is somehow a normal expectation of aging. He is validating that empowerment will always yield better results than fear and that healthcare should be fun. He believes we can do better to meet the needs of older adults by combining human connection with technology to impact results at a population level. His primary mission is to bring lasting solutions to older adults to meet the greatest anxiety points of aging, beginning with falls.

BurnAlong
BurnAlong (www.BurnAlong.com) is an online health, wellness, and fitness platform that works with leading employers, insurers, municipalities, non-profits, and health systems that provide BurnAlong for their employees, members, and patients. BurnAlong specializes in providing wellness programming built for even those who aren't currently focusing on their wellness because of their relatable instructors, the inclusion of family, social motivation with built-in communities, and diversity of content to meet every employee with relevant classes, no matter where they are in their wellness journey. With unparalleled access to 2,000+ instructors, teaching 13,000+ live and on-demand wellness classes across 45+ categories - from traditional fitness to nutrition, financial wellness, adaptive workouts, chronic condition support, and more - BurnAlong helps people, and their families, achieve personal health and wellness goals.

Speaker from BurnAlong: Daniel Freedman
Daniel Freedman is the Co-CEO of BurnAlong, an online video and social motivation platform that works with companies, cities, universities, hospitals, and insurers. He is a former columnist for Forbes and began his career at the Wall Street Journal. He is the co-author of the award-winning, NYT top-10 bestseller, "The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda." Daniel previously held senior roles at the United Nations, intelligence consultancy TSG, Apploi, and the U.S. Senate. He also co-founded CyecureBox, a counter-espionage product.

Speaker from BurnAlong Mike Kott
Mike Kott is the co-founder and co-CEO of BurnAlong, an online health, wellness, and fitness platform that provides diverse programming, inclusive tools, and content produced by local instructors to a global audience. Mike began his career at Black & Decker where he delivered to market some of the company’s most successful products. Mike then moved to Bill Me Later, a financial services startup that was ultimately acquired for ~$1billion by PayPal. He was handpicked to lead the initial integration into PayPal and eBay, and then climbed the ranks to Head of North America Product for Credit. Mike is a recipient of PayPal's President Award for having a material impact on the business and has an MBA from Loyola Marymount Maryland.

WalkWise
WalkWise is a smart walker attachment that prevents falls, aids in emergency detection, and notifies caregivers and healthcare providers to changes in health conditions. Our monthly service includes the hardware lease for the Walker Attachments and Nodes, usage of the app, 24/7 notifications, analytics, and reporting.

WalkWise focuses on the walker as a key tool in preventing falls and encouraging an active, healthy lifestyle. WalkWise is the only way to know if a person is using their walker; and if they are not, one can intervene to reduce fall risk. It is also the best way to track the activity levels of walker-using seniors (smartwatches do not work, and cell phones are often placed in the walker). Others have retrofitted well-known consumer technologies to senior healthcare, with limited success. These technologies require 24/7 compliance, which is never achieved, especially at night where it matters most. Even wireless charging is a huge barrier to adoption. WalkWise lasts over a year on its batteries and does not require a wearable, charging, or smartphone. Simply put, wearable emergency response buttons are only pressed in about 20% of falls. WalkWise is a necessary second line of defense to early detection of falls and other emergencies.

Speaker from WalkWise: Peter Chamberlain, Founder & CEO
Peter is the Founder & CEO of WalkWise and is focused on saving lives and helping older adults maintain their independence through innovative technologies. He earned a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for his work on the automated manufacturing of micro-fluidic devices. He is a founding member of the MIT Hyperloop Team, who won the inaugural SpaceX Hyperloop Design competition and built the world’s first functional Hyperloop Pod prototype. He was a founding member and Director of the MIT Water Innovation Prize, where he managed a diverse organizing team. Their work resulted in a series of entrepreneurship workshops and the award of $30,000 in grants. While at MIT, he took courses in product design, entrepreneurship, manufacturing, and robotics. He was the lead engineer on the Otter Infant Warming System project with Design that Matters, which is now being deployed in hospitals around the world. While studying at the University of Portland during his undergraduate degree, he won the Dean’s award and interned at Biotronik, a medical device manufacturer. 

HeyRenee
HeyRenee is the personal health concierge, everyone, especially those managing chronic illnesses and conditions, has wanted and needed. The patient-centric HeyRenee platform is designed to consolidate, coordinate, communicate and connect all aspects of medical care. Through long-sought data integration with healthcare providers, the platform endeavors to eventually help all Americans, the underserved especially, connect with their entire healthcare team and relieve the burdens of appointment scheduling, in-home visits, prescription medication administration to Telehealth and remote patient monitoring, and more.

Speaker from HeyRenee: Nick Desai, Co-Founder & CEO

Nick Desai is a renown serial entrepreneur and innovator focused on using connected technologies to improve everyday life for all humans.  His latest health-tech startup is HeyRenee – the first-ever patient-centric digital care concierge designed specifically to coordinate, communicate, and connect all aspects of healthcare for the 100MM mostly older, underserved Americans who suffer 2+ chronic conditions. 

In October 2014, Nick created Heal – the award-winning home-centric primary care company that he ran as CEO thru March 2021.  During that time, he raised $200MM in investment capital, won contracts with 25 major insurance partners, 75 major self-insured corporations and led Heal’s expansion to 10 US states. During his tenure as CEO, Heal was named #13 to the CNBC Disruptors List, won the CES Small Business of the Year Award and was a Deloitte Fast 500 company. 

Prior to Heal, Nick has founded and built successful venture-funded startups in online weight loss coaching, social media and the web’s first self-updating address book.  Nick speaks passionately about healthcare and entrepreneurship including a podcast on Slice of Healthcare and previously writing for the Huffington Post

Nick earned his BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Irvine, where he was awarded the 2018 Lauds and Laurels Distinguished Alumni Award, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.  Nick spends most of his free time playing with his three rambunctious young kids, eating pizza or taking walks with his best friend and wife, Dr. Renee Dua. 

Sponsor this Event

Event sponsorship opportunities are available for the 2021 SOA ElderTech Seminar. If you are interested in learning more, please view the event Sponsorship Prospectus or email sponsorship@soa.org