Tim O’Reilly to Host ‘Unconference’ for Health, Tech Leaders

Today we announced a grant to O’Reilly Media  to  sponsor the Foo Health Camp in 2011, a cross-discipline, immersive, informal 'unconference' that will take advantage of a growing interest in applying Web 2.0 and open-source thinking in health care to spark ideas that can expedite changes in the ecosystem of health care services. This event is being announced on the heels of last summer’s O’Reilly Open Source Convention, where we helped sponsor the event’s first-ever health track. A full report of that event’s takeaways is now on our Web site.

The Foo Camp-unconference format was pioneered by visionary Web leaders Tim O’Reilly and Sara Winge of O'Reilly Media. O’Reilly Media is a leading technology publisher, conference organizer and supporter of the free-software and open-source movements (Foo stands for “Friends of O’Reilly). The format, in which attendees design the agenda on the spot, produces more brainstorming and group problem solving than formal presentations – which is clearly conducive to catalyzing the type of outside-the-box thinking needed to transform health and health care.

This health camp will be an invitation-only meeting, bringing together about 150 key players from health care and emerging technology, including researchers, funders, health care executives, software developers, entrepreneurs, journalists, policy experts, thought leaders and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation team members.

We will be sure to fill you in on more details as they become available, including how to participate in the conversation via social media.

For more on Tim O’Reilly’s vision on how technology will change health and health care – and why O’Reilly Media is jumping into the field – you can watch his interview with Pioneer Team Leader Paul Tarini below. Then leave a comment and let us know what you think!