This episode is a different type of podcast. As you know, a couple of weeks ago I was at Voice Summit 2018, where I had the chance to meet Tahsim Ahmed, a voice-technology innovation leader. Tahsim recently launched a new podcast, called Voice and Beyond and I was privileged to be his first guest. Today’s episode is a recording of Voice and Beyond’s first episode. In the episode, we speak about the Voice Summit, voice technology’s future, and voice and healthcare.

And stick around to the end, because I have a very special announcement regarding flash briefings.

Tahsim was a speaker at this conference. He spoke about how to get started making skills for Amazon Alexa with Storyline.

As you may know, I am a physician based in Vancouver and the founder of Alexa in Canada and Voice First Health, a website about the intersection of VoiceFirst tech and healthcare. Below you will find a summary of the question I was asked and my responses.

Now that the Voice Summit is winding down, could you share some of the memorable moments you had here?

I was blown away by the size of the conference.  When you start to see references to voice in pop culture, you know there’s enough public knowledge of the technology.

Why has voice picked up steam right now?

I have experienced firsthand the different interfaces we’ve used to interact with technology, from typing commands on my first personal computer, to using a mouse, to swiping a touchscreen. I believe that up to this point, we have had to adapt to interact with a computer. With voice, it’s the opposite; the computer is  adapting to us. I believe that when you communicate through voice, we are communicating in the most natural way.

What was your favourite talk during the conference?

My favourite talks had to do with health. One interesting thing I heard was about a company using the acoustic signal of voices to determine health risks, such as becoming depressed or if they’re at risk for coronary heart disease.

Billion dollar companies, like Instagram and Waze, were built on mobile, a market that emerged just 10 years ago. I believe we’re going to see companies that really can leverage voice in the next 3-5 years.

How could security concerns hinder voice’s disruption of healthcare?

This is one of the biggest barriers right now, due to security and privacy. I believe that, when it comes to healthcare and voice technology, we’re going to have to make a decision: Do we really care? I believe the convenience of the technology is going to be something people are willing to give up a bit of their privacy for.

What was your talk about?

I spoke about where I see healthcare going. I spoke about the problems with the Canadian healthcare system, where it takes a long time to see a doctor or specialist. I believe the ideal healthcare system has three components: the right care at the right time at the right place, and I believe that voice tech could replicate, in a smaller scale, the care you get from a medical team.

Now, the announcement!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I have created the most comprehensive course on flash briefings available. The course will show you how flash briefings work, the equipment you need, what you should talk about, how to plan, organize and upload your flash briefing, among many other components! This will be your one-stop shop for all flash briefings questions and needs. You can find it right now at FlashBriefingFormula.com.

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

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