David Cole

IBM Watson Health Innovation Lead Europe; Co-Founder of UK Children’s Charity Thinking of Oscar

David is a social entrepreneur and technologist with a passion for innovation in healthcare and specifically paediatrics. He has had a career with IBM spanning over 19 years and has spent the last three years working within IBM’s artificial intelligence arm, Watson. David began the role of Innovation Lead at the beginning of 2018 with the remit of exploring new ways for healthcare organisations to embrace IBM’s Healthcare and Cognitive technologies.

Outside of IBM, David runs a UK based children’s charity, Thinking of Oscar, which supports children and their families whilst in hospital care, funding innovation and technology over and above that provided by the UK health services. Thinking of Oscar was set up following the sudden death of his son Oscar in 2014 and has raised nearly £200,000 in just over 3 years. David and his wife Hannah work closely with UK Children’s hospitals to identify projects where they can make a difference. David is a member of The International Society for Paediatric Innovation (iSPI) which has been formed to address the unmet needs of an open global network, enabling unique opportunities for paediatric leaders to be at the cutting edge of technological innovations. His ultimate goal is to see artificial intelligence technologies, such as Watson, pervasively used in paediatric healthcare to assist with diagnostics and help to save lives.

David is a ‘Digital Health Expert in Residence’ at the University of Oxford supporting it’s healthcare start-up incubator, The Hill. David lives in rural Oxfordshire in the UK, with his wife and 3 young children. David is a keen triathlete, cricketer and wine enthusiast, holding an Advanced Level 3 qualification from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. He is building up to compete in his first full Ironman in 2019.