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In a weekly column, alternately written by Lucien Engelen, Maarten Steinbuch, Carlo van de Weijer, Daan Kersten and Tessie Hartjes, E52 tries to find out what the future will look like. All five contributors are all working on technologies that can provide solutions to the problems of our time. This Sunday, it‘s Lucien Engelen’s turn.

Here are all the prior editions of [TOMORROW IS GOOD]

As more and more branches in society get digitalized, the notion we can learn from each other increases with it. Of course, there are specifics in every industry, but I would argue those will be in the minority of the similarities.

Let’s take my branch: healthcare.We tend to approach almost every process as a completely medical process, sometimes for the best reasons like safety. Often, however, it is ‘just’ logistics or communication or administrative processes. So why not learn from companies specialized in those topics that are not (yet) working in healthcare? Facing a doubling in healthcare demand, a fixed or even declining budget we really can use every help we can get to come up with smart solutions.

It was Einstein who said : We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

So, I took the stage at the leading tech event in The Netherlands TheNextWeb-conference (an awesome group of 12,500 people joining per day ) sometimes referred to as “LowLands for geeks” and shared a standing invitation to all the attendees. Coming from communication, big data, artificial intelligence, finance, marketing and asked them to come over and join us, to help cope with the challenges we face in this great sector that has a profound impact on people’s lives.

As I got off the stage people were lining up in person and via social media. To share (very) personal stories and to offer their help or asking where and how to make a start. I hope this helps a bit in our emerging offer to make “Planet Healthcare” an even better place with a sustainable future.

In the afternoon one of the other keynotes I’ve visited was from Ben Hammersley who talked about why innovation is so hard, that really resonated with me and also is non-industry specific.

I think we really should cross the crossing more, there is so much to learn. Why not get out of your chair right now, and go to the company next door, or a street away (great for your 10.000 WHO steps goals for today 😉 and ask what your sector could learn from theirs. You’ll be amazed.

Want to know more? join me on the Patreon channel I’m setting up and help to spread the challenge.

ps: video’s published with permission of TheNextWeb.