The WT | Wearable Technologies Conference took place from February 5th to 6th – bigger than ever before at the ISPO Munich. The 33rd edition of the event gathered the innovation and industry experts from the entire wearable ecosystem to discuss the latest technologies, upcoming trends and share their knowledge. The extensive exhibition and inspiring talks together with the IOT/WT Innovation World Cup® gave the attendees an experience to remember.
The first day was opened by WT | Wearable Technologies founder and CEO Christian Stammel followed by Asli Solmaz-Kaiser from TÜV SÜD talking about securing consumer trust for connected products.
The opening keynote was held by Oliver Niedung, IOT Principal Solution Specialist at Microsoft. Oliver gave us an inspiring talk about how wearables accelerate the digital transformation through production optimization and connected field services. In his speech, he presented a simple AI integration into wearables for business. The TREKSTOR SmartAgent – an IoT smartwatch for the intelligent edge – offers its users a comprehensive solution to leverage digital change.
Digital transformation is disrupting the economy, creating opportunities for innovation across industries and revealing new markets. The session New industries, new markets for a smarter world, dealt with the change digitalization has brought to us. The first talk by Thomas Uppenkamp from Casio was about smartwatches for efficient communications in occupational environments. It was followed by Dirk Sandrock the CEO and founder of Momes with the questions why Google Glass and AR failed so far or how much data do you need in action? Next up was Dr. Petra Ahde-Deal from Copenhagen School of Design & Technology with a presentation about how wearables are becoming part of everyday life. The morning session was concluded by Kevin Lloyd and Greg Varner from Together School. They started a discussion about putting wearables to school and how to successfully address the education market.
After a networking lunch, we came back with the afternoon session of the conference which was all about Innovating the status quo. The session started with Matthias Kauer the CEO of Lightricity talking about the world’s highest efficiency indoor photovoltaic technology – a perpetual source of power. Thilo Schmierer was up next with the inspiring session on soft dry electrodes for long-term use. Last but not least, Linda Elkins from Gore Innovation Center followed with her presentation about the role of advanced materials in wearables.
The first day was concluded with the innovative pitches from the IOT / WT Innovation World Cup® finalists from healthcare, industrial, sports and gaming, among others. From the pitches we learned for example about the world’s first wearable breast pump, intelligent caregiving, smart medication, IoT Skiing analyzing and much more. We would like to say huge congratulations to all winners, thank you to the jurors and bravo to all amazing game changers that took the stage at the 10th #IOTWTIWC Pitch and Award ceremony!
At the end of day one, we invited all of the conference guests to join us at a networking party on the ISPO fairgrounds. #WTEU19 had started off great!
Day two kicked off with a keynote from Tiasha Renganathan from MAS Holding, together with Timo Pape from Odlo. Their presentation about the productization of wearable technology in consumer markets gave us insights about Phoenix – the active heat technology that puts you in control of your personal micro-climate.
After the keynote, the focus was on Disrupting the Sports Industry. The session started with Andreas Schröder from My Fitness Card. His fitness aggregator offers a gym-on-demand solution and more than 24 000 fitness & wellness courses around Germany with one gym card! Tom Berkovits followed with bringing fun, safety, and performance to outdoor activities using head-word augmented reality. He gave the conference audience an amazing skiing experience with an AR skiing helmet. Next on the podium was Melanja Sober, the Head of Product Management from Elan. She spoke about the first smart ski loaded with sensors that help the skier to improve their performance.
The sports session continued with John Ralston from Protxx. He presented 15 years of concussion sensor research and their solution in which wearable sensors reduce neurological and orthopaedic impact injury risks. Dr. Daniel Link from Technical University Munich inspired us with data analytics in top level sports and presented a continuous quantitative representation of the probability to score a goal in football. The challenge they are facing now is to develop a method to utilize data for coaches, players and other stakeholders.
After a short break, we continued with a keynote from Yannis Pitsiladis about the personalisation of sports and exercise medicine through wearables: The new “microscope” of the 21st century.
The keynote was followed by four presentations about revolutionizing healthcare. Dharma Teja Nukarapu from Sharkdreams shared with us a presentation about his company’s ecosystem called LIVIT that aggregates data from a medical monitoring device and a body vital monitoring device. With the data and related prescription information, LIVIT provides a detailed report on medical adherence and outcome impact. Next up was Dr. Chris Castel who we want to thank for his special effort on taking the stage with a very short notice. He represented CareWear and gave us an interesting speech about post-injury & performance recovery using wearable light patches.
What followed next, was a presentation about the first wearable breath analyser from VitaScale. The speech was given by Dr. Ulrich Jerichow, the CEO of the company. The last speaker of the session was Dr. Christian Müller from Bayer Vital who showed us real-world evidence generation using wearables in a digital research ecosystem.
The final session of the conference was themed around smart patches and pills. Philip Siberg from Coala Life opened the session with AI powered predictive and preventive medicine by connecting your heart to the cloud. Next, we welcomed on stage Reinout Woltjer the CTO of Novioscan who gave a presentation about SEN-SU, a smart wearable sensor for bladder monitoring. Jose A. Carrido, ICREA research professor, presented us interesting insights on graphene technologies for advanced neural prostheses. The honour for closing the session was given to Max Ostermeier and Implandata. In the final presentation Ostermeier explained how IoT works in ophthalmology – advancing glaucoma care into the 21st century.
Once again, a huge thank you to all exhibitors, speakers and visitors! The #WTEU will be back in Munich next year!
