CAYHIC 2026
First Cohort
A look back at our inaugural cohort — sessions, speakers, special guests, and the Health Innovation Challenge.
The impact of our first cohort.
Participants
Countries
Sessions
Speakers
Challenge Teams
Experts who inspired our first cohort.
Mr Jason Ali
Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Royal Papworth Hospital
Affiliated Associate Professor & Subdean, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge · Co-Lead Investigator, EuroSCORE III · 140+ publications cited 3,000+ times
Predicting the Unpredictable: How Data Is Changing Cardiac Surgery Risk
How surgical risk-prediction models are built, validated, and used in real clinical decision-making — and what happens when data science meets the operating room.
Milutin Milojković
Biomedical Engineer · ML & Device Development Lead, GlucoSense AI
Contributor to STRATIFYHF (AI-driven heart-failure risk stratification) · B.S. Bioengineering, NYU (cum laude) · M.S. Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University
From Clinical Need to Health Innovation: Designing for the Real World
How real-world constraints — cost, infrastructure, clinical workflow, and accessibility — should shape the way we approach innovation in biomedical technology.
Ulugbek Baymuradov
Computational Biologist & AI Engineer · Cancer Drug Discovery & Aging Research
Formerly at Stanford University (ENCODE data portal), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the New York Genome Center · Co-author, Nature and Nature Medicine · Originally from Uzbekistan
From Gene to Medicine: Retracing a Cancer Drug's Discovery with AlphaFold and Free Genomics Tools
The real story of a cancer drug from gene discovery to clinical use — and the free tools students can use to explore that same science themselves.
Dr Erica Richardson
Technical Officer, European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
Honorary Associate Professor, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine · Honorary Research Fellow, CREES, University of Birmingham · Co-leading The Lancet Commission on Ukraine · Edits Health System Reviews (HiTs) for Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia · Lectures on Health Systems at LSHTM; guest lecturer at the University of York, CNAM, Louis Pasteur Institute (Paris) and Kyiv Mohyla Academy
Health Systems and Policy Across Eastern Europe and Central Asia
An overview of health system reviews and policy work across the region, and how young researchers can engage with health systems research to drive meaningful change.
Prof. Antonio Sarria-Santamera
Professor and Chair of Biomedical Sciences, Nazarbayev University School of Medicine
Program Director, PhD in Global Health · Former Fulbright Fellow, Dartmouth Medical School · MD & PhD in Health Services Research, Universidad de Zaragoza
From Clinical Evidence to Global Health Policy
How health technology assessment and health services research shape healthcare policy, and the role of biomedical sciences in training the next generation of global health leaders.
Abdullah Azizov
First Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Director for the Development of the Medical and Pharmaceutical Industry
Celebrating our top three teams.
Veritas
Development and Implementation of Food Calculator for Metabolic Risk Assessment and Nutritional Optimization in Uzbekistan.
Allele AI
Career screening, assisting the identification of genetic risks in consanguineous couples in Uzbekistan.
Lifeline
From Academic Overload to Micro Actions in 60 Seconds.
The panel who evaluated our teams.
Dr. Zarina Zaribbaeva
Mashhura Kudratova
Milutin Milojković
Organizations that enriched our program.
Freshman Research Institute
Provided a workshop and seminar on biomedical research mentorship and research publication.