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FAQs
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Background
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The Pacific Health Summit is an annual event that welcomes leaders from science, policy, industry, medicine, and public health to Seattle every June to discuss how to realize our vision for a healthier world. Each year the Summit focuses on a single theme designed to tackle an important problem in global health.
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The Summit is co-presented by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), which serves as the Summit Secretariat.
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The mission of the Pacific Health Summit is to connect science, industry, and policy for a healthier world through effective utilization of scientific advances combined with industrial innovation, and appropriate policy.
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The vision for a Pacific Health Summit came out of a sense that what was happening in science and technology in Asia and the Pacific region could catalyze a transformation in healthcare from a reactive model to one based on prevention, early detection and early treatment of disease. Over the years this concept evolved and the Summit has expanded globally, focusing worldwide on innovation and opportunities, and recognizing that there are no borders around the human and financial cost of disease. At the same time, leaders in the science and technology field recognize our name and associate it with our annual gatherings as a place for them to connect and collaborate with the private sector and with policymakers. Though we have expanded beyond the Pacific, we will remain the Pacific Health Summit.
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The Summit's annual theme is carefully selected by the Executive Committee in order to build momentum and impact for an area of global health that would benefit from the Summit's unique approach and contribution. In 2007, our theme was "Pandemics—Working Together for an Effective and Equitable Response.†This interest dates back to the inaugural Pacific Health Summit in June 2005, when Jong-wook Lee, the then-Director-General of the World Health Organization, eloquently and passionately addressed the need for greater attention on the threat of a global avian influenza pandemic. In 2008, our focus was "The Global Nutrition Challenge: Getting a Healthy Start," focusing on the complex challenge of too little of the right nutrition for vulnerable populations, the rapidly emerging health threat of too much of the wrong nutrition in both developed and developing societies, and the continuum between them.
In 2009, our Summit theme was "MDR-TB: Overcoming Global Resistance." Over the course of two days, participants explored ways to strengthen existing approaches to basic TB control and MDR-TB management, and break through existing bottlenecks around technology development and treatment implementation in both developed and developing country health systems.
In 2010, the Summit theme was "Maternal and Newborn Health: The Crux of a Decent Humanity." The Summit will focus on vaccines in 2011.
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To ensure that the Summit is a productive and useful event for participants, the Summit agenda evolves throughout the year and is finalized in the spring by the Summit secretariat. As we refine the Summit program, we reach out and invite input on provocative questions and key issues every participant would like the Summit to address. Summit sessions will build constructively on the critical arc of events related to the current theme and focus and we hope to integrate the questions and issues participants and invitees raise with us before June into the program.
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The Summit features a limited number of moderators and panelists who are chosen by
the Summit secretariat. Everyone in the room is a leader, and every voice is important. While the vast
majority of delegates do not have a formal speaking role, interactive discussion between everyone in the
room makes up 90% of our sessions. Panelists serve to catalyze a larger discussion, and there is ample
time for everyone to express their perspectives and ideas.
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The Summit’s plenary sessions and workshops are structured to foster dynamic panel discussions and interactive audience participation. Each session features a “talk showâ€‐style plenary panel that is thoughtful, exploratory, and prompts action. Panelists serve as “discussion catalysts†and are given three minutes each at the start of the sessions to initiate lively and productive dialogue. Our plenary sessions focus on “What actions can and should the people in the room take now?†and are not intended to produce non-binding recommendations or technical discussions about specific data sets. PowerPoint is not permitted.
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The Summit logo expresses the timelessness of the human hope for better health. The character chosen to represent the Pacific Health Summit, pronounced sheng in Chinese and ikiru in Japanese, means “life†or “to live.†The Summit logo is a character that is simple and clean in meaning, yet powerful in scope. In the same way that this character for “life†also combines easily with other characters to build hopeful and strong compounds, we too hope the Pacific Health Summit will become a cornerstone upon which to build partnerships and collaborations.
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Sponsorship
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The Summit welcomes support from private sector partners, as well as foundations and government institutions. In addition to Summit sponsors, every year the Summit secretariat also invites a small number of partners to become “Summit Supporting Organizations†in recognition of the valuable support they provide to the Summit Secretariat through leadership, advice on our program and speakers, and in some cases limited, direct travel support to developing country participants to attend the June Summit. While Supporting Organizations do not necessarily provide financial sponsorship, they make essential contributions to the Summit in other ways.
For a complete list of Summit sponsors and supporting organizations, please click here.
Logistics
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Participation in the Pacific Health Summit is by invitation–only. Invited participants will receive invitation and individual registration instructions by email from Summit staff. Each year, the Summit Secretariat carefully canvases the landscape of innovators and leaders at all levels in the fields most relevant to our theme to search for individuals who implement unique approaches, offer a new voice, and have the ability to reach across sectors. While we aim for broad geographical representation, our primary focus is on identifying unique individuals who have the motivation, energy, and resources to collaborate with others in order to make a significant impact as well as those in the trenches making critical things happen every day. One of our guiding principles is that the business sector has a role to play in discussions and activities that will transform global health.
The Summit deliberately maintains a select and distinct number of participants to foster the intimate atmosphere that allows individuals to make personal connections and build foundations for long-term, relationships. These relationships that begin at the Summit have had a monumental impact on global health. We also strive to feature leaders and “movers and shakers†who are not traditionally featured at other events in order to bring new voices to the table. An invitation to one Pacific Health Summit does not guarantee an invitation to subsequent Summits in order to support our goal of bringing new voices, people, and ideas into the conversation each year.
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Invitation and participation in the Summit is by invitation-only; invitations are non-transferable. Invitation requests and recommendations will be considered at the discretion of the Summit secretariat, granted on a case-by-case basis. Invited participants will receive registration instructions by email from Summit staff, which will include link to the registration website and personalized username and password. Booking for the conference hotel can be done through the registration website.
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The Pacific Health Summit takes place every June. Seattle has been the venue for the first five Summits. It is the city where the Summit was initially conceptualized, and it is home to a deep global health community and a large number of truly global companies. While Seattle will continue to be one of our venues, we have listened to feedback from participants who requested we consider other locations. In an effort to globalize the Summit, starting in 2010 we will rotate the annual gathering between Seattle and London. The home of our co-presenting partner, Wellcome Trust, London was the natural selection. Additionally, London provides us with a central hub for participants attending from around the globe.
In 2010, the Summit was held in London, UK for the first time. The Summit will return to Seattle in 2011 and take place in London in 2012.
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Conference organizers are working closely with local law enforcement and government agencies to address
and prepare for any security concerns.
MEDIA ACCESS AND POLICY AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Learn more about the Pacific Health Summit
and its Leadership.
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