In case you didn’t make it, Spindle organized a thought-provoking panel at the 2017 Canadian Science Policy Conference (held in Ottawa on Nov 1-3) entitled “How the culture and structure of science might change to address grand societal challenges“. A big thank you to our moderator Dr. Mark Poznansky and to our panelists, who showcased big picture and integrative thinking as well as user-driven design as core principles for solving today’s wicked problems. Dr. Don Stuss discussed the importance of multimodal data gathering right at the bedside to bring much needed intelligence on the complexity, variation and interconnected nature of human disease and to help fine-tune the treatment discovery process from the get go. Dr. Gordon Kurtenbach spoke about the need for software platforms that can integrate and converge these multimodal datasets into a bigger picture and reveal novel insights and solutions that work at the system of systems level. Dr. Amy Lang emphasized the importance of multidimensional and holistic info gathering and analysis in the context of putting novel solutions into practice and making a difference in individuals’ lives.

Thanks again to all who participated. We hope you were as inspired as we were.