Runners up win at Global Virtual Siemens Healthineers Innovation Think Tank 2020

So in these past 2 weeks, I decided to take up a new challenge! And to my surprise, our team won the runner’s up position at the Innovation Think Tank (IIT) by Siemens Healthineers led by Prof. Sultan Haider.

Innovation Think Tank UAE organized ITT Certification Program for co-creation on “Future of Healthcare” with key healthcare institutions.

Siemens Healthineers UAE with its Innovation Think Tank Certification Program has been working on healthcare business models, disease pathways and biomedical innovations of the future with participants from 12 institutions. The interdisciplinary teams (including doctors, engineers and management professionals) came together under the leadership of Prof. Sultan Haider for two weeks and identified UAE specific challenges and created solution scenarios. It is planned to continue the projects at various upcoming ITT programs in UAE and other locations.

Honestly, I didn’t think this would happen as this was the first time ever I decided to take part in a virtual based program to solve a problem within the UAE sector.

My biggest challenge was the fact that I’m not even in Dubai currently. I’ve been in Sydney, Australia for more than a year now, and my journey in Dubai had been much smaller than this, approximately 10 months.

And so, I’d love to share how I came across this amazing program, that you must try if you ever get the chance too.

Now, I’ve always been the person who likes exploring myself, but I’m also the person who doesn’t like being on my phone all the time. So when Megna Kalvani our amazing Global Learning & Student Life head had sent across an email about signing up for the challenge, I obviously didn’t read it until 5 minutes before the application deadline submission. 

However, when I read the content of the ITT Methodology, all I thought to myself was, wow I have to try this out. And so I took a chance, wrote an entire application in 5 minutes and 4 days later got a selection email!

The ITT program, not only helped me explore the healthcare sector of Dubai, it trained me to open up my critical thinking capabilities and rethink innovation like never before.

The flow of the program trains you for acquiring mandates, problem recognition, root cause analysis, identifying interdependencies, stakeholder management, big picture creation, conception via transdisciplinary expertise, decision proposition creation and implementation of cycles, all this taught me that innovation is not always about creating new things but also about reimagining the future with the things that we currently have.

A big thanks to my team, without whom as this would have never been possible Ratu Nida (GMBA Sep’19) and Arfaaz Mohammad Kapatralla (MGB Sep’19).

I’m currently in my final year for Bachelor’s of Business Administration and my team members were completing their Masters, so the fact that I also got to learn from these talented and experienced people alongside has made this challenge even more fun.

This was the first time ever I tried something like this, and I’m sure now that I’d be doing so much more as it’s not only a way to learn and enhance your knowledge but also network and grow with such experienced professionals within their respective teams.

So a big thank you for this opportunity and to everybody who has taught me something along this journey.

I know now, that every time I look at an idea, I start analysing it by looking at the bigger picture ☺️

About the author: Reet Mediratta (BBA’17)

An author, blogger and a final year BBA student specialising in Marketing at the SP Jain Sydney Campus. Reet is our Events Secretary, Student Council, and loves taking up different projects and initiatives. She is the founder of various business-related events where people are provided with a platform to share their stories and ideas. Her personal interests include aerial yoga and She has also been a dance choreographer for younger children and has organised several performances and plays for them. In her free time, she manages a student lifestyle and travel blog that focuses on building a student community and helping students world wide to connect with each other and share their stories worldwide on Instagram @lifeofaglobalstudent