Our New HCx3DP Initiative (Healthcare Multiplied By 3D Printing)—A Planned Process to Bettering NYC’s Healt Via Three “Cs”: Community to Conference to Cluster!

In HCx3DP New York, we present a “modest” plan. Our end-game goal is to create nothing short of the first—and dominant—industrial-segment “cluster” of HCx3DP in the world. This Cluster—this geographically centered HCx3DP (commercial and common-good) Ecosystem—will be based in New York City. Our HCx3DP Community will root our Cluster HQ at the fertile intersection of Healthcare and 3DP (the meme/brand for Digital Fabrication, Additive Manufacturing & 3D Printing).

 

Land Grant, Publisher/Editor/Organizer, 3DP Media | NYC3DP.com | HCx3DP New York

Land Grant, Publisher/Editor/Organizer, 3DP Media | NYC3DP.com | HCx3DP New York

Our HCx3DP will help coalesce—and progress—the key elements, most forceful vectors and leading players within an action framework: our “3Cs” of Community, Conference & Cluster.

This 3Cs concept-set of three steps also channels our advancing, milestone-demarked agenda at HCx3DP New York:

(1) Near-term: build a successful, in-person, “synergizing” HCx3DP NY community with the support of online media, Web presences & monthly human-connection (Meetups);

(2) Midterm: present an enriching, enlightening and action-priming HCx3DP Conference/Mini-Expo NY in collaboration with a broad family of sponsors & partners (Spring 2015);

(3) Long-term: help establish a virtuous HC/3DP Ecosystem—a HCx3DP Cluster HQ creating commerce & common-good—supported by a community home-base in NYC.

New York City is our locus of choice for many reasons. These include its geographic, commercial and thought-leading “location,” our 3DP marketplace revolutions and (yes!) my personal predilections. (I’ve lived and worked in Brooklyn—and now NeoBrooklyn!—for more than 35 years: why build for social good anywhere else but the Metropolis I love?!)

Here’s a review—least you forget—of why NYC is the logical locus of the HCx3DP Cluster we’re building:

Our New York City is uniquely positioned and qualified to foster THE HCx3DP Ecosystem that will dominate the 3DP disruption of Healthcare around the world. These are some of the on-the-ground facts—Gotham-ground!—that testify to this view:

  • NYC is the acknowledged center of 3DP in the U.S.
  • NYC enjoys unique, in-place 3DP and Digi-based commercial infrastructure. This “platform” includes MakerBot to Shapeways; Kickstarter to Meetup; Etsy to Huge.
  • NYC boasts the unique community of Brooklyn “Techreatives.” These are the CyberHipsters who can draw a beautiful analog curve, parse its truth in digits online and then arc a startup toward profit.
  • NYC possesses the planet’s most extensive locus of higher-education institutions.
  • Metro-NYC is the world’s “Pharmaceutical Capital,” with 60% of America’s Pharma industry found here.
  • New York State is ranked #1 as a location for Life Sciences organizations.
  • NYC organizations employ 665,000 Healthcare workers, largest such population in the U.S., and—most probably—the world.

Basics in place, we launched HCx3DP New York on 20 October 2014.

After appropriate research, prep, positioning and run-up, I was pleased to announce our new Program for “HCx3DP New York: Healthcare Multiplied By 3D Printing” via blog post on 20 October. You might consider this post as an HCx3DP “manifesto” of sorts…

I’m also an avid fan of “Meetup Marketing.” Thus, we launched our HCx3DP Meetup Group on 22 October—”HCx3DP: Healthcare Multiplied by 3D Printing = Synergies.”  To get started—while we build profile, participation and influence—we calendared our first physical meet-up (12 November at the DUMBO Startup Lab in Brooklyn).

Gathering-in the “HCx3DP Synergists”—creating Wellness Firebrands to light the way to tech-fueled Healthcare.

HCx3DP MUp NYSo, on Wednesday evening last week, we enjoyed a splendid evening of Community building. I’m a great cheerleader for getting people together to make things happen. “Welcome!” is a personal mantra.

Hey, we’re a gregarious species of animal. And, I love people. Hence, my natural drive is to help gather folks around some crackling fire of a worthy concept. And, then foster everyone’s warmth-adding story-telling—present and prospective—to all other joiners at the digital or analog “hearth”. Fuel the common flame with energy-filled ideas. Then, light up the night-sky with a bonfire of possibilities—and the heat of passions for betterment: personal and public.

Let’s keep running with this metaphor of humans and their fires for a line or two. (Prometheus—meaning “forethought”—was right to steal the flame from Zeus…it represented power.) From our modern individual’s point-of-view, healthcare is THE great “combustable” of our age. Everyone needs Healthcare, yet it is hard to understand, expensive to obtain and dangerous—if not managed properly.

So, Wednesday evening last, we gathered around the HCx3DP Meetup event “hearth” and threw our “versions” of thoughtful fuel on our common fire of Healthcare.

In helping to tend and tame the blaze of a meeting, diversity furthers. The greater the range of ideas—around a broad common core—the brighter the amalgamated light shining forth. We spark off each other.

As attendees arrived, I greeted each and confirmed their identity and interests as best I could. Then—on the social fly—strove to introduce new arrivals to others in conversing sub-groups by likely matchups. Match or mis-match, the key in such circumstances is to get folks engaged—usually by providing just enough of a bidirectional intro to ignite co-interests and to light-up give-and-take. Getting folks comfortable and talking early fosters a socially easy, convivial and valuable rest of the evening. A single match can light a number of skyrockets.

After effective introductions, bonhomie usually serves to keep the individual discussions warm—until the small group talks and chats gets together in a common bonfire around the core events planned. (And, I definitely believe the most effective events have to be carefully planned: rich environments—creating effective human interaction among prior strangers—don’t happen by accident.)

In addition, the M/C at such informal meetings should be prepared to adjust the timing and/or agenda on the fly. Nothing ever goes to plan! For instance, we had thought that our “Hands-On 3D Printing Demo” (Item #5 in our Agenda below) would be a kind of “sidebar”—or co-aligned sub-event—while some folks continued to network after arrival. Instead, everyone was interested to pay full attention to Aaron Roy’s expert Demo/Orientation. So, this co-axial action became the evening’s first core-presentation for the entire group. AND, provided an excellent platform for further common understanding.

 

As an example of planning, here is our First HCx3DP Meetup’s final Wednesday Evening Agenda: Enriching the mix of fuel on flame…

 

Your “Take-Aways”—From The Agenda Items Of Our Inaugural, In-Person, HCx3DP Meetup—Will Include:

(1) Agenda Item: greetings and orientation to “HCx3DP New York’s” structure, operating concepts & goals by me, Organizer Land Grant;

>> Take-Away: An operational understanding “HCx3DP New York” and its value to you, plus my self-intro and my plans to assure a rich and compelling HCx3DP environment for Members and attendees;

 

(2)   Agenda Item: informal attendee self-intros, sharing of interests & expectations;

>> Take-Away: A personal view of fellow HCx3DP members and attendees, their topics of concentration and what they hope to get from their membership/attendance;

 

(3) Agenda Item: my short A/V presentation (a continually updated “work in progress”) on the latest developments in HCx3DP. (I presented the first iteration of this overview at the NYC Health Business Leaders‘ panel—”The 3D Printing Revolution Meets Healthcare”—in June.);

[[[Here, in fact, is my latest version—link just below—now entitled:


“HCx3DP Album of Innovation”

HCx3DP NY-Latest Tech Prez-Rev 5-14N14]]]

 

>> Take-Away: A visual “mental picture” with bullets, annotations and comments profiling the latest developments in HCx3DP technology and solutions;

 

(4)  Agenda Item: a panel discussion on some of the newest innovations in DIY/DIT (Do-It-Together) Healthcare: Including Maker Nurses, 3D Printed Prosthetic Devices & Community BioLab medical cross-overs, followed by Q&A. Here are our projected panel participants:

Victor Ty, Jr. RN — Health Maker: associated with MakerNurse.org &  
LEGO Medical Design (miniature med-procedure “demos” for children undergoing medical tests and interventions);

Aaron Michael Roy — DIY/DIT 3D-Printed Prosthetic Devices: 
 Director of Corporate Strategy,  
3D Printing Operating System; Meetup Organizer, “Learn 3D Printing – Brooklyn”; Volunteer, e-NABLE, DIY/DIT 3DP’d Prosthetic Devices for children;

Danny Cabrera — The Democratization of Bioprinting: Co-Founder, BioBots; Philadelphia; “Bringing about the new age of rapid bio-prototyping.”

>> Take-Away: An expert-guided appreciation for several distinct branches of DIY/DIT Healthcare growing up from the community grassroots—with hybrid implications—via a “Maker-Cultivation” husbandry. Plus, how these phenoms contrast and compare, and what synergies pertain;

 

(5)   Agenda Item: a side-bar demo of 3D printing for the uninitiated by the Organizers of the Meetup “Learn 3D Printing – Brooklyn;”

>> Take-Away: A hands-on, up-close orientation around actual 3DP-desktop Additive Manufacturing, informed by free-form Q&A during demos and commentary.

 

(6)   Agenda Item: ample time for networking and congenial cross-connecting (plus light refreshments)

>> Take-Away: Relationships!

+++

 

HCx3DP MUp NYOur Next HCx3DP Meetup New York: December (all the details to come…)

Now, I’m working on our next HCx3DP Meetup for the second week of December. Yes—I know—a tough month for us all socially. BUT, I promise to make our NEXT get-together so rich and interesting that you’ll just HAVE to attend! For fear of missing the fun, fabulous HCx3DP revelations and (mostly) the fine “HCx3DP Synthesists” you’ll want to know.

C’mon Back!

LAND

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