HYPR is testing its self-learning autonomous driving system in a modified Daimler Smart Car.

Warm up

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What industry do you work in and what is your role?
What are your responses in your role / position?
Can you describe to the function of your workplace / company?
How many departments, how many offices. National or International?
What are the minimum requirements for employment ie Education or Experience?
How many opportunities are there to ‘move up the ladder’?
What is the process for changing job roles ie Interview? Test?

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General discussion about your workweek:

Current projects? Deadlines? Opportunities?
Anything of interest happening?

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Script

1. One of Elon Musk’s relatively recent and most successful ventures is SpaceX, an advanced aerospace technology company with a mission of “Making Humanity Multiplanetary.” The company has celebrated some incredible milestones thus far, from its successful transportation of astronauts into space, to its valiant strides in making rocket technology reusable, and therefore, more cost-efficient.

2. One interesting sub-division of SpaceX is Starlink, which is Musk’s venture into increasing global connectivity. Starlink’s mission is to use a global network of low Earth orbit satellites to eventually “deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.” While satellite internet itself is not a novel concept, most of the traditional systems use dated technology that have far less capabilities with regards to internet speed, connectivity, and sustainability.

3. Starlink’s goal is to provide high-speed broadband internet, using cutting-edge satellite systems that will also not add to the space pollution created by traditional systems. As of now, the company states that it “is targeting service in the Northern U.S. and Canada in 2020, rapidly expanding to near global coverage of the populated world by 2021.”

4. For many, high-speed broadband internet has incredible implications for connectivity. One of the most important potential benefits of this technology may be its impact on healthcare and access-to-care in underserved areas.

5. For decades, it has been a well-recognized fact that rural sites in America have poor access to healthcare. This has not been helped by the rising trend of burnout in healthcare professions, in addition to an ever-growing physician shortage.

6. Experts have articulated that the rise of telemedicine may be one possible solution to help with this issue. Digital platforms that can effectively and safely deliver healthcare without regard to distance or location can potentially provide a viable solution to connecting underserved populations with the care they need. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a great test of this technology. As stay-at-home and social distancing orders became the norm this year due to coronavirus, many healthcare systems, and in-turn patients, often had to rely on telehealth for their care needs.

7. Of course, as telehealth services continue to grow, regulators, healthcare professionals, and innovators will need to keep a close eye on many issues that will inevitably emerge, including data-storage concerns, cybersecurity problems, and most importantly, how best to protect patient privacy and information. The latter is especially concerning, given the growing trends in healthcare cybersecurity breaches in the past decade.

8. However, if the appropriate oversight bodies can indeed resolve the issues that telemedicine entails, there is significant opportunity for this technology to make an impact. The market has been receptive of this as well, with telehealth companies gaining massive amounts of utilization and market share just this year alone. In fact, studies indicate that the telehealth market is poised for a 25.2% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) and a valuation of nearly $559.5 billion by 2027.

9. Nonetheless, one of the most important limiting factors for telemedicine is connectivity. Due to the same degree of distance that causes healthcare shortages in rural areas, these locations often also lack reliable and high-speed internet connections—the kind that is needed to support stable telemedicine applications and platforms.

10. This is where Starlink could potentially become a game-changer. If the Starlink service can indeed provide high-speed broadband internet services to rural populations, it may resolve yet another piece of the puzzle in increasing access-to-care in underserved communities. Furthermore, the applications of this technology are endless and go far beyond the American paradigm of rural healthcare. Starlink’s concept, if proven to be scalable and effective, may be able to one day provide internet worldwide, providing the opportunity for underserved communities across the globe to receive much needed medical attention.

11. Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done, as the pipeline and scope that Musk is envisioning with this technology is by no means rudimentary. However, if Starlink is able to viably, sustainably, and safely scale this technology across the globe, its potential impact on healthcare will be an unprecedented paradigm shift.