
Meet our experts

Dr Takao Tashiro
Japan
The Open University of Japan
Takao Tashiro, MD and PhD., is currently giving lectures at the Open University of Japan as the professor of Liberal Arts.
Takao Tashiro, MD and PhD., is currently giving lectures at the Open University of Japan as the professor of Liberal Arts. Prior to the current job, Dr. Tashiro was the associate professor of Juntendo University of School of Medicine (2003-2011). Dr. Tashiro is a seasoned researcher in widely varied fields from internal medicine, public-health, population- health, community-based care and collaborative care for both scientific research and policy research.
Dr. Tashiro has been also active in R&D of designing and building the community from the professional perspectives of both healthcare and wellness, not only by academic works but also by government-academic collaborative works. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1980, Tokyo University Medical School in 1984. He did research at Michigan University Medical School and Tokyo University Medical Center and Obtained his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2000.

Giovanni Saggio
Italy – Expert from the EU
University of Rome Tor Vergata
Giovanni Saggio is a Researcher and Aggregate Professor at the Electronic Engineering Department of University of Rome “Tor Vergata”.
He is specialized in Ambient Assisted Living; Medical Applications of Electronics; Fundamental of Electronics; Analog Electronics for Sounds; Measurements (Engineering, Medicine & Surgery Areas).
Giovanni Saggio is currently Researcher and Aggregate Professor at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” (Italy), where holds chairs about Electronics at the Engineering Faculty (Depts. of Information, Automation, Mathematics, Biomedical, Master of Sound, Master of CBRN Protection) and at the Medical Faculty (Depts. of Neurophysiology, Cardiovascular Medicine, Orthopedics, Audiology).
Saggio received the degree in Electronics Engineering and the Ph.D. in MicroElectronics and Telecommunication Engineering at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”.
He started working on Electronic noise of devices, SAWs, e-nose, and later focused his efforts on Electronic sensors, devices and machine learning algorithms for biotech applications.
He has been project leader of several researches, in particular for the Italian Space Agency (ASI), for the Avionic Service of the Italian Defence Department (Armaereo), for the Italian Workers’ Compensation Authority (INAIL). GS founder and manages HITEG (Health Involved Technical Engineering Group, http://hiteg.uniroma2.it).
GS authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific publications for Conference and international Journals, eight patents, several book chapters and is unique author of eight books (in Italian language) and one book (in English Language) devoted to the Analog Electronics.
GS co-founded three companies: “Captiks Srl” (www.captiks.com) involved in systems to measure human kinematics, “Seeti Srl” (www.seeti.it) involved in Virtual Reality developments and applications, and “VoiceWise Srl” (www.voicewise.eu) involved in early medical diagnosis by means of analysis of the human voice through AI.
Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-saggio-708478a9/

Hye-Jin Kim
South Korea
Baekseok University
Dr Hye-Jin Kim holds a Ph. D in Special Education from Columbia University Teacher College.
She currently occupies several positions and notably as an Adjunct Professors within Baekseok University’s Special Education Department, Understanding Children with Disabilities.
Dr Hye-Jin Kim holds a PhD in Special Education from Columbia University Teacher College. She currently occupies several positions and notably as an Adjunct Professors within Baekseok University’s Special Education Department, Understanding Children with Disabilities. Kim wrote and published a book in 2019 titled “The real relationship is difficult”. She did research on several topics such as the use of art therapy or the importance of sex education to prevent the sexual abuse of young children with intellectual disabilities.

Steven S. Charlap
USA
SOAP Health
Steven Charlap’s healthcare career, which spans over 30 years, has taken him in several directions.
Steven Charlap’s healthcare career, which spans over 30 years, has taken him in several directions. Trained as a surgeon, and armed with an MBA, he was initially recruited to become Director of Corporate Development for T-Cell Sciences (TCS), a publicly traded biotechnology company, at which he oversaw technology licensing and pharmaceutical partnerships.
In 1989, Steven left TCS to co-found, as CEO and Chief Medical Officer, HealthDrive Corporation, the largest U.S. provider of medical and dental services to extended care facilities. Over twenty years, a two-time Inc. 500 company, HealthDrive served more than five million patients in some 1,500 facilities across 13 states. In 2000, he published Making Sense of Nursing Homes—A Guide for Families.
During his HealthDrive tenure, Steven witnessed how the health care industry’s non-focus on preventing chronic diseases often results in costly, invasive and reactive medical treatment for patients. In response, he developed the concept of MDPrevent—a multi-disciplinary, integrated primary care and preventive medicine practice focused on helping patients make lasting lifestyle changes to achieve exceptional lives.
While at Stanford, Dr. Charlap completed ten courses related to genetics, genomics, and preventive medicine as well as several courses related to consumer behavior, problem solving, and health care and media technology. He also consulted with dozens of genetics/genomics and computer science experts both at Stanford and across the country, and mentored over one-hundred entrepreneurs.
He is currently CEO of GeneYes, a digital health care startup applying AI-driven Virtual Health Assistants to improve comprehensive health care data collection, analysis, and reporting for various applications, e.g. cancer predisposition assessment, nutritional intake assessment, etc..
Steven Charlap received a BA from Yeshiva University, where he majored in Speech & Drama, an MD from New York University School of Medicine, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he majored in entrepreneurship.

Yiqiang Chen
China
Chinese National Institute of Science and Technology
Dr Yiqiang Chen is a professor and Director of the Research Center for Ubiquitous Computing Systems, Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Yves Joanette
Canada
Université de Montréal
Yves Joanette is Professor in Cognitive neurosciences of aging at the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Montréal.
Yves Joanette is Professor in Cognitive neurosciences of aging at the Faculty of Medicine of the Université de Montréal. He is currently Deputy Vice-Principal Research at the Université de Montréal, after having served as the first Director of the Digital Health Consortium at the University of Montreal. Before, he was the Scientific Director of the Institute of Aging of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Executive Director of the CIHR International Collaborative Research Study on Alzheimer’s diseases. From 1997 to 2009, he was successively the Director of the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), and President & CEO of the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec as well as Chair of its Board.
Professor Joanette’s research interests concern aging process and cognitive deficits in the elderly. Using combined cognitive and neuroimaging approach, he contributes to knowledge about the neurofunctional reorganization allowing to maintain communicative abilities in aging, to the impact of right-hemispheric cerebral lesions on those abilities as well as to the cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s disease. Since the beginning of his career in research, Dr Joanette and his team have trained numerous scholars and clinicians while engaged as well in knowledge transfer and the introduction of best clinical practices.
Yves Joanette has been Scholar and then Scientist of the Canadian Medical Research Council (now CIHR) and has received many distinctions, among which the André-Dupont Award form the Club de recherches cliniques du Québec en 1990, and the Eve-Kassier Award for exceptional professional accomplishment in 1995. Yves Joanette is Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Science. In 2007, the Université Lumière de Lyon (France) presented him with a Honorary Doctorate.
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/yves-joanette-9b34a733/
Focus: Early diagnosis and detection
AHA (Active and Healthy Ageing) begins with a prolonged health regimen. Tech-enabled solutions that engage users in health and wellness techniques will allow active and meaningful senior lifestyles.
Current State: The current state of technologies in the preventative care realm include wearable technology, which is primarily based around safety and vital monitoring, and health technology that utilises new ways to allow individuals to remain active and healthy when advancing in age. General health and wellness technologies allow users to practice in a conscious and participatory way. These applications allow for coaching, testing for sharpness, and more clinical applications that can detect conditions early on. New advances in health devices add to the internet of things (IoT) that can affect healthcare; apps that test and practice visual acuity, gamified memory apps, health logging and medicine reminders all help delay onset of issues associated with age. With greater access to medical data, and the ability to monitor it at home, solutions can now utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI) and clinical workflows to assist health awareness like sleep cycle, blood sugar, exercise, and blood pressure. The most advanced solutions can communicate across the continuum of care, looping in professionals to monitor and suggest modifications in lifestyle, increasing the potential for early detection.
IDIH project focus: The focus of IDIH within this field will be on innovative technological themes and applications on early diagnosis and detection such as health information technology, mHealth, portable and wearable devices, eHealth, telehealth/connected health, gamification, big data analytics, personal genomics, health and wellness apps, interoperability, social media and quantified self.