It's with a heavy heart that the Health Foundry team and members say farewell (for now) to one of our founding members and former Programmes & Partnerships Lead, Will Nicholson. From the very beginning to date, Will has been a big part of building and supporting Health Foundry and it’s vision to enable innovation in healthcare.
It's with a mixture of real sadness, excitement and pride that I'm going to be saying goodbye to Health Foundry to start the next chapter of my life in Northern Ireland with my family.
Health Foundry has been a huge aspect of my working life - I've been part of the furniture here from 'pre-birth' to celebrating its 6th anniversary this year! I was part of the team that worked on setting it up and have been a member, host, system connector and most recently, Programmes and Partnerships Lead, since it's inception
During my time at Health Foundry I’ve been extremely privileged to have met so many wonderful people doing amazing things in the digital health - all of them bound by the same inspiring mission to improve health and wellbeing through technology. There are way too many to list but I’ve captured a few standout memories to bring to life the special time I’ve had as part of the Health Foundry community.
In the summer of 2016, I was with the team at Guy's and St Thomas Foundation and Architecture00 as we first conceived the idea of a healthtech community and co-working space in Waterloo, We, rather like naming my children, spent many hours debating a name before agreeing on “Health Foundry” which, by the way, (from my very biased and proud parent position) is pretty darn good!
For me, the name captures perfectly what we set out to achieve - a melting pot establishment where health is moulded into all sorts of different things in varying shapes and sizes.
I remember the launch event fondly. We had over 200 people visit us over several days which created a lot of buzz and really put us on the map. We got to hear from the great and the good in the world of digital health, and I specifically remember hearing from Ivo Gormley, the Founder of Goodgym, who inspired me with his talk about “tech for good”. I’ve now done over 100 missions for Goodgym, supporting the local community in Lambeth, as well as keeping myself fit in the process!
At the beginning of Health Foundry, I got to meet Tom Whicher, Perran Pengelly and Rinesh Amin, the Founders of DrDoctor. They were one of our first members and a great success story of Health Foundry - I’ve loved watching them grow from a team of 13 to around 100, with the DrDoctor patient engagement platform now embedded in over 30 NHS Trusts across the country. I also met Dr Isabel Van De Keere, another one of our other founding members and CEO of Immersive Rehab. Isabel epitomises the ethos of the community at Health Foundry - she's always happy to deliver a Lunch and Learn, take part in our Randomised Coffee Trials or meet other members to give them valuable support and insights.
Arden and Ross Tomison, Co-Founders of Thalamos, also share this same community ethos. Despite being two of the hardest working people I know, (our FILO members - first in and last out each day!) they are always willing to find time for others, whether it is offering mentoring to earlier stage entrepreneurs or filling out our member surveys with invaluable feedback.
I’ve also loved making connections for our members and local community. Introducing Kerstyn Comley, Sharmaine Malik, Michael Mclaren and the rest of the team at MeeToo to various local stakeholders via the Great Lambeth Mental Health Day Walk and to King’s College London, as part of a young person’s mental health event, particularly stand out. Similarly making creative connections has been a lot of fun too, for example, introducing the team at Doctors in Distress to the Florence Nightingale Museum who share a similar interest in supporting the health and wellbeing of nurses.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about Health Foundry has been partnership working. As a neutral space, Health Foundry provides such a fantastic opportunity for doing things together that we couldn’t do on our own. It’s been a real privilege to work with Freya Hickman, Founder of re:mind, and one of our Community Supporters, Sophie Scholar of Claim Capital. Both wanted to do more to raise awareness of, and address, the significant issue of gender inequality in the healthtech sector. Since February 2022, we have worked with Freya and Sophie to create a Female Founders Network and have convened 5 in person and online events with over 50 participants!
Another real highlight of the power of partnership at Health Foundry has been our regular monthly networking event focused on health data catalysed by Nick Nettleton; self-professed data geek and Founder of Loft Digital. We have now run 8 events since September 2021, attracting over 200 attendees in total. The partnership combines the subject matter expertise and passion for data at Loft with Health Foundry’s neutral physical space, events management expertise and convening power. The third event added an extra layer of partnership as we coincided a meetup as a fringe event to one of our members' GIANT Health’s Annual Conference in November 2021.
Above everything, what I love about these events is that they provide the chance to meet new people and to bump into old friends. Serendipity has led me to making some wonderful connections and friendships over the years, as well as some late nights having in depth discussions about changing the world with Melissa Holloway (SmartStart), Ina Burgstaller (Bionabu) and Sharmaine Malik (MeeToo), to name but a few!
Speaking of partnerships, I want to thank Gail Macdonald and Emily Oliver and the rest of the team at Guy's and St Thomas Foundation for making Health Foundry possible. Without their investment and tireless support over the years, none of the above would have happened. Their efforts, alongside the creativity of Sarah Hollingsworth and Alice Fung at Architecture00, have transformed an unassuming ground floor space at the bottom of a block of flats and brought the vision of Health Foundry to life.
As an ‘experiment’ to test and learn about the conditions necessary to support innovation in healthtech, it has far exceeded our expectations. It's so exciting to think about the next steps for Health Foundry and how we can build on the learnings from these last 6 years. It has been a real privilege to be part of discussions about 'HF2.0' and life beyond Royal Street. There is a truly wonderful opportunity for Health Foundry to be an integral part of the SC1 Life Science District - so watch this space!
And of course I couldn’t finish without a special mention for my amazing colleague Natalie Archer. She really is the glue that holds the whole place together (and held me together!) and I'm delighted that she is stepping up to be the General Manager of Health Foundry. I’m so excited to see where she and Chris French, the new (and much improved) Programmes and Partnerships Lead take Health Foundry next, and I wish them every success.
So after 6 years at Health Foundry, I leave with a real mixture of sadness as I say farewell to so many friends and colleagues but also with huge pride as to what has been accomplished in this time. What next for me? I’m just excited to see where the wind takes me in the Emerald Isle!
Health Foundry Northern Ireland anyone? ;)
Words: William Nicholson
This isn't goodbye Will, but see you later! Stay connected with Will on LinkedIn here.