Recoding Medicine: Paris Matchmaking Night

Health dataset holders meet AI research teams — for SPRIND's Recoding Medicine Challenge.

Europe holds some of the most valuable biomedical data in the world, and most of it never reaches the research teams who could use it. Not because the science is hard. Because the two sides don't know each other exists, and because the route from "we have this data" to "you can work with this data" runs through legal and organisational questions nobody has an incentive to answer first.

This is three hours to close that gap in one room — the Paris edition of the matchmaking programme for SPRIND's Recoding Medicine Challenge.

What happens

18:00 — Arrive. Drinks and food, no programme. You'll get a badge marking what you're here as, so people can find you. Come early; this is where the useful accidents happen.

18:40 — Short intros, about 30 minutes total. Foresight on why we're convening this and how the matchmaking works. SPRIND on who they are and how their challenge model works. A welcome from our Paris host. And a local institution on the problem itself — why this data is stuck, and what it would unlock.

19:10 — Open mic. Thirty minutes, the floor is yours. One to three minutes each: what you hold, what you're looking for, who you want to talk to.

19:40 — Matching and networking, until 21:00. The rest of the evening is yours to actually have the conversations. You'll get to know who's in the room and who's worth your time.

Sessions will be in English.

Who should be there

Dataset holders. Hospitals, biobanks, research institutes, registries, patient organisations, and companies holding biomedical or health data. Your data doesn't need to be clean, complete, or ready. The point of the evening is to find out what it could be used for.

ML and AI research teams. Academic groups, startups, and independent researchers who want real biomedical data to work against. Come with a method or a question — you don't need a finished project. Come especially if you're looking for people to apply with.

Domain experts. Clinicians, epidemiologists, biologists and biomedical researchers who can say whether a proposed pairing is scientifically worth pursuing. This group is usually missing from rooms like this, and it's why good matches fall apart.

Data governance and legal specialists. People who work on data protection, access agreements, and research ethics. Most of the difficulty in getting a dataset to a research team is legal, not computational. We want the people who resolve that here while the conversation is happening.

Create your profile first

Before you come, make a short profile on the Foresight matchmaking platform: https://foresightmatchmaker.app/

Dataset holders describe what they hold, roughly how large it is, and on what terms it could be accessed. Research teams describe their method, domain, and what they're looking for. You'll get a shortlist of suggested matches — ranked, but never automatic. Nothing is introduced without your say-so, and no data or contact details move unless you decide to engage. The platform tells you who's worth talking to; the conversation and any terms are yours.

Do this before you arrive.

Can't make it to Paris? You can create a profile and be matched without attending in person. The platform runs across all three events. Or join us in Berlin on 2 September or Stockholm on 17 September.

The platform is built and operated by Foresight Institute.