Proceedings: DIA Europe 2018

Leaders of Tomorrow Brighten DIA Europe 2018

Tshaka Cunningham
Associate Director, Scientific Collaboration, DIA

T

he bright future of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry was on full display during DIA Europe 2018, where more than 100 emerging young professionals participated in the inaugural DIA Leaders of Tomorrow (LoT) Program. To continue this positive momentum, a new Leaders of Tomorrow online Community has been created to give our young professionals a forum to continue their conversations and knowledge sharing all the way up to the DIA 2018 Global Annual Meeting in Boston this June.

  • More than 700 emerging young professionals downloaded the LoT mobile app for DIA Europe 2018
  • More than 30% of these professionals participated in the LoT challenges to build up activity-based points in the app
  • The 15 most active users received complimentary registration to DIA Europe 2018 and were given special recognition by DIA senior leadership during the LoT Networking Reception
  • More than 800 users have already signed up for the LoT app in association with our DIA 2018 Global Annual Meeting in June, and many have already begun to tackle the LoT challenges leading up to it. Join the conversation here.

This LoT Program was launched several months before DIA Europe 2018 by DIA’s own young professionals Julien Meinrad and Elena Popa. (Read previous article for more background on the LoT Program.) The goal of DIA’s LoT Program is to engage this promising group of emerging young professionals (new entrants into the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry workforce with less than five years of job experience) by allowing them to build relationships with their peers and senior industry leaders, and broaden their understanding of the healthcare products industry by attending professional development and other sessions at DIA regional and global events.

  • The more than 80 LoT participants who fully attended DIA Europe 2018 added vibrant energy to the conference by posting comments and pictures, and by sharing their knowledge and ideas through the mobile app and in informal DIA Community discussion sessions. In the course of their site visits to Novartis, Roche, and Actelion, they received guided tours of pharmaceutical laboratories and facilities in operation, and asked insightful questions about the current and future states of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, especially challenges in GMP manufacturing, drug safety, and regulatory affairs, of their company hosts. They ended their experience with an energetic “speed-networking” session with senior leaders from the DIA Regional Advisory Council, who coached them on how to build successful careers within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Join the conversation here.