From 24 May – 16 June over 20 students from across the globe got together in Groningen for the summer school Global Health & Quantified Self at Hanze UAS. In little over three weeks time these students from a.o. South-Africa, USA, Germany and Tanzania explored the aspects of globalisation and health that link to digital health and selftracking.
With its tradition of national and international cooperation, the knowledge it has available and the ties between the public and private sectors, the Northern Netherlands is the logical testing ground for innovation and new care concepts. Furthermore, with the Quantified Self Institute, Hanze UAS has gained a lot of experience in the past 5 years with a wide variety of self-tracking projects using various devices. Both elements contributed to the success of this year’s edition of the Summer School Global Health & Quantified Self.
Quantified Self (QS) is best understood by engaging in the act of self-tracking, so all the participants were given a device (Fitbit Charge HR) at the start of the course. This gave the students the chance to experience what the possibilities and shortcomings are of self-tracking. Next to this self-exploratory approach, a number of high-quality speakers provided the students with the latest insights from the world of QS. Together with Quantified Self co-founder Gary Wolf, Martijn de Groot of Quantified Self Institute organised a Q&A in which the students gained insight into the field. Furthermore, a number of well-established self-trackers / QS researchers from Europe shared their experiences during a series of guest lectures: Sara Riggare of Karolinska Institute, Thomas Blomseth Christiansen of TOTTI Labs and Jacob Eg Larsen of Technical University of Denmark.
Interested in our Summer School Global Health & Quantified Self? Or do you know someone who would like to participate? The summer school is an annual event. For more information about next year’s edition, please consult the Hanze UAS summer school website.
