After two years of lockdowns during the pandemic, as a team we discussed whether we should keep the CHT2022 conference virtual or move towards an in-person conference. After much deliberation we chose to keep CHT2022 virtual. This was in part based upon our aspiration to create a Global Child Health Technology Community, uniting colleagues around the world who share the common goal of developing the world’s most advance healthcare for children and young people through digital and technology development.

Whilst online communication will never replace in-person contact, it was clear that CHT2022 truly brought us together from across the globe to share the best in child health technology across our four themes – Patient Involvement and Co-design, Creating a Child Health Technology Community, Technology in Practice, and Global Innovation. Streaming the conference live from Sheffield in the United Kingdom at the Technative Studio over two days, we had presentations and live Q&A from countries including Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Singapore, the US, the Netherlands and Spain. It was exciting to know that we had met together at CHT2022 from as far as opposite sides of the world to share our knowledge and experiences. The variety and quality of the presentations and live conversation has set a high standard for future CHT conferences.

CHT2022 would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our Sheffield teams – the team at NIHR CYP MedTech, Marketing Sheffield, Event Management Direct, and TechNative solutions – well done and congratulations on the success of CHT2022!

I hope that CHT2022 has provided the foundation for future partnerships and opened up opportunities to collaborate on projects and share ideas. As we heard clearly during the conference – children and young people make up one quarter of the world’s population – they are the future and must not be forgotten. As we work together, we will be challenged with meeting the needs of those who need us most in the underserved and hard to reach communities, and we will need to work hard to harness funding to achieve our goals. However, it will be worth it and I know together we can succeed. Let’s continue to work together and grow our Global Child Health Technology Community to give children the best start and young people a brighter future.

Thank you to all our delegates for joining us at CHT2022 – your support has inspired us to bring CHT2023 to you next year.