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On 10 October 2024, the first networking event of the BIH Charité Digital Clinician Scientist Program took place according to the motto “Forging the Digital Future”. Around 60 participants exchanged ideas and networked on the premises of “Old Smithy's Dizzle” – a former smithy in Friedrichshain. All fellows of the (Junior) Digital Clinician Scientist Program as well as digital-affine (Junior) Clinician Scientists were invited with at least one other person relevant to their digital research project (e.g. external guest, doctoral student, mentor, developer). Members of the (Digital) Clinician Scientist Board were also represented. Three DCSP fellows and a JDCP alumnus put together a varied program and led through the event (Wiebke Düttmann-Rehnolt, MD, Felix Machleid, MD, MPH, B.A., Ivan Nenchev, MD, and Jan Wandrey, MD).

To kick off the event, Professor Igor M. Sauer, Director of the BIH Charité Digital Clinician Scientist Program and Deputy Director of the Department of Surgery, welcomed the guests. In a ‘Pitch & Plenum’ format, projects and their challenges were then presented in five minutes and discussed for ten minutes. This allowed exciting insights into very different projects – practically oriented, first-hand and unvarnished. The focus was on the following four topics: 1. recruitment & involvement of patients in digital projects and developments, 2. implementation of AI solutions, 3. digital methodological skills of physicians – skill development on the ‘second educational path’? and 4. use of clinical data in the context of external collaborations. The challenges in the implementation of digital projects in medicine in general and at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin in particular were highlighted and existing digital workflows and possible solutions and suggestions for improvement were discussed across disciplines. 

In addition to the fellows' project presentations, there were keynote speeches by Dr Simon Drees from the EU Commission (acting Head of Sector for Health Reforms in the unit “Labour market, Education, Health & Social Services” within the Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support of the European Commission) and Martin Peuker (Head of IT, CIO of Charité). There was also a keynote impulse lecture by Georgios Nikolis, Team Leader of Scientific Computing (HPC) of Charité.

At the end, participants had time to socialize and network in the relaxed atmosphere of “Old Smithy's Dizzle”.