CONNECTIONS
BUILDING TRUST TO BEAT THE NEXT
PANDEMIC Texas Biomed’s Global Health Symposium 2022 brought together hundreds of participants from around the world online and in person at the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
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ongoing pandemic, with more data and opportunity for reflection about the past two years. One theme reverberated throughout: trust.
aunched in 2021, Texas Biomed’s Global Health Symposium aims to bring together leaders from research, healthcare, government, business and philanthropy to tackle global health challenges.
In her keynote address, CDC Foundation President and CEO Judith Monroe, MD, highlighted how previously established relationships with donors and recipients enabled quick resource mobilization in January 2020, well before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. With one phone call to a trusted partner, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the CDC Foundation activated its emergency response fund with $1 million the next day.
“Health and sustainable development are closely intertwined, but the people we need to collaborate with on these grand challenges are not often in the same room — we are seeking to change that with this symposium,” said Akudo Anyanwu, MD, MPH, Texas Biomed’s Vice President for Development. The inaugural symposium was held online, as the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines were still rolling out. Global Health Corps Co-Founder Barbara Bush headlined the event, which focused on how to better prepare for the next pandemic.
“That, my friends, is moving at the speed of trust,” Monroe said. She encouraged others to work during non-crisis times to establish partnerships and preposition philanthropic funding streams that can be rapidly distributed when emergencies arise.
This year, hundreds of attendees from around the world joined online and in person at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Discussions centered around the
In his keynote, Colorado State University System Chancellor Tony Frank, DVM, PhD, applauded 34