We are pleased to announce that Dr. Kendall Ho, MD, FRCPC has been appointed as Academic Director for UBC’s Community Health and Wellbeing CIC, a collaboration with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS). The appointment commenced December 1, 2019.
Dr. Ho is a practicing emergency medical specialist, Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, and the Lead of the Digital Emergency Medicine Unit. He has gained professional recognition for his ground-breaking digital health research, applying innovative technologies to support patient transition between emergency departments and the community. He is also the Executive Director of the inter-Cultural Online health Network (iCON), an initiative funded by BC Ministry of Health Patients as Partners Initiative to support the Indigenous and multicultural population for optimal management of chronic diseases through in-person and digital approaches. Dr. Ho’s work has been recognized with provincial and national awards for research and education in digital health and community engagement.
The UBC Community Health and Wellbeing CIC — the first of its kind in Canada and the 8th in the world — gives student teams, supported by staff and faculty, the opportunity to use leading cloud technology from AWS to unlock results for challenge projects faster and generate new insights for our community. The team-based, hands-on approach, coupled with industry expertise, provides authentic, digital learning experiences for students as well as opportunities for UBC faculty and staff to work with innovative tools. Challenges can be proposed by any member of the UBC community, as well as by community, government or not-for-profit organizations, who will engage with subject matter experts to identify a solution and to build a Proof of Concept. All of the innovation challenge outputs, including the Proof of Concept, will be published as open source for other community members to access and use.
This initiative opens new opportunities for engaging with innovation methodologies, for work-integrated and interdisciplinary learning opportunities, for knowledge translation into the classroom and for collaboration with the community, all key areas in UBC’s strategic plan.
Dr. Ho’s extensive community outreach in digital healthcare will be a tremendous asset in his role as inaugural Academic Director for UBC’s Community Health and Wellbeing CIC. Please join us in congratulating him in this new role.
For more information, please go to cic.ubc.ca.