Mid-Year Reflections 2026

Or, in plain English: looking back at the first semester of the year, and trying to make sense of what the second one is asking from me.

The first big mountain of 2026 was March, with the Lagos WellTech Summit, organised by Digital Health Portugal and hosted by the municipality of Lagos.

It was a massive undertaking. Not just another event, but a real attempt to place health and wellbeing at the centre of how a city thinks about its future.

Our theme — Healing Territories — was not a decorative slogan. It opened the door to a much deeper conversation about territorial health models, wellbeing as public policy, and the role cities can play when they stop treating health as something that only happens inside healthcare systems.
That only happened because of many people.

The City of Lagos, of course.

• Our honorary committee.
• Our advisory committee.
• Our sponsors.
• Our speakers, partners, and many generous contributors who gave time, trust, content, ideas and energy.

And the work did not stop when the summit closed.

With Egas Moniz School of Health & Science, we have now produced One Health, Many Ways of Knowing — a book I am truly proud of.

And we are also preparing a second volume in Portuguese, sponsored by Lagos em Forma,  that connects the summit work even more closely with local action, community well-being, the city's own journey, and the Algarve as a WellTech Region. 

Looking back, I also realise that much of my 1st Semester's work was not only about delivery.
It was seeding.

The Meetings Show in London and the FAM trip to Bath in the UK may not show their full impact immediately. But I have a strong feeling that some of the conversations, places and relationships created there will bear fruit in 2027.

📅 And now S2 is calling.

The main delivery ahead is the Health Data Forum Global Hybrid Summit in Bilbao — an amazing collaboration with the Basque ecosystem, including the Basque Government. 

What is happening there around health data, genomics and real-world implementation is genuinely impressive.

• Not because data is fashionable.
• Not because AI is everywhere.
• But because better use of health data can lead to better outcomes — and, yes, to better financial sustainability for health systems under enormous pressure.

So my overall reflection is this:

Most meaningful work seems to live in two time zones at once.
One is short-term execution: the deadlines, the logistics, the delivery, the visible work.
The other is long-term planting: the conversations, the trust, the ideas, the partnerships that may only make sense months or years later.
The hard part is not choosing between them.
The hard part is keeping the right balance.
How about you?

Are you mostly executing what is already in motion — or planting what may only become visible next year?