Sheffield is set to deliver an exciting follow up to the first ever child health technology conference (CHT2021) in the UK in May 2022.

Its aim to reflect the sector on a global scale was given a boost at last year’s conference as delegates from more than 19 countries were in attendance including the UK, Ireland, Greece, Latvia, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Israel, USA, Canada, and Australia. This year’s impressive speaker line-up reflects the global nature of this emerging child health tech community. The conference is a packed two-day virtual programme (reflecting the continued challenges with international travel) coordinated from its home in Sheffield.

Delegates will hear from speakers such as Timothy Chou and Alberto E Tozzi from The US and Italy who will look at challenges to developing AI in paediatric medicine -they will introduce their moon shot mission to enable a new generation of paediatric applications based on access to all 1,000,000 healthcare machines in all 500 children’s hospitals in the world. Dr Terry Fleming brings expertise in teenage metal health and digital tools in youth mental health all the way from the University of Wellington New Zealand. And Mike English, Senior Research Fellow at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust in Kenya looks as why often technically optimised tools often then fail to yield benefit and how a much better understanding of the real contexts in which work is done is needed to avoid huge amounts of research waste.

CHT2022 will bring together healthcare professionals, industry, engineers, computer scientists, designers, academics and patient representatives around one of the most exciting and fast-moving fields in healthcare today. Delegates will also have exclusive access to the Global Centres of Expertise area of the conference- a dedicated hub live on the virtual platform to access information for all corners of the globe around the latest in child health.

The conference’s founder and Professor of Child Health at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Professor Paul Dimitri, has been the driving force behind the emergence of Sheffield as a centre of excellence in child health technology and is passionate about building the global child health tech community.

Professor Dimitri said, “Children truly matter. The conference will once again bring together our global community- those who are committed to the development of the world’s best healthcare for children and young people. At a time when long term conditions in childhood affect millions of children it’s critical to create more opportunity for cross disciplinary networking and collaboration. I’d urge anyone in this field not to miss hearing the latest in child health tech from experts as far away as New Zealand and Kenya- and of course our colleagues in the UK and Sheffield.”

The second edition comes hot on the heels of the recent announcement that work will start next year on the National Centre for Child Health Technology– a world-beating centre to improve child health at Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park- after partners in Sheffield agreed to collaborate to secure the remaining capital funding needed.  NCCHT will be the first of its kind in the world, positioning the UK as a global leader in technology for paediatrics and child health.

Recent research shows that for every £1 invested in child health the return is more than £10 to society over a lifetime. The £20m investment into the centre could return up to £200m to the NHS in the future. It will develop technologies to address key national strategic priorities in child health including childhood obesity, child and adolescent mental health, cancer, disabilities, long term conditions and prevention.