Evan Kirstel
Social Media Business Strategist, Founder www.EvanKirstel.com
Social Business had been a healthy “obsession” for years, as I’ve grown my Twitter (138K followers) and LinkedIn (15K connections) networks, while helping dozens of clients grow from zero to tens of thousands of engaged followers. My connections are a “Who’s Who” of the B2B Enterprise, IoT, and Cloud, and I’ve been named the 5th most influential B2B marketeer in the US. I combine 20+ years of sales, alliances, and biz dev experience with deep knowledge of social, mobile, IoT, cloud, security, and voice/video/web collaboration, offering a unique perspective on market convergence dynamics. I am excited to bring my influence, expertise, and strong track record in marketing disruptive technologies to the Health Tech space.
How did you get to become an expert in healthtech?
As a long-time expert and thought leader in the Cloud, Security, IoT, Big Data, AI and other technologies, I’ve been following their emergence in the health landscape with great interest. I believe we are on the cusp of an unprecedented convergence of technologies, one that could bring about sustained disruption and allow us to solve the most pressing issues in healthcare.
I was also drawn to the incredible energy of the health tech community here in Boston. Home to several premier teaching hospitals and prestigious universities, there is a vibrant community of health tech innovators here, as well as a natural test-bed to pilot these innovations in real healthcare settings. Be it physician entrepreneurs, hospital leaders rethinking the entire patient care system, digital health startups and accelerators, public-private partnerships, or empowered patients and their vocal advocates, Boston is home to a world-class health tech innovation ecosystem and a growing digital healthcare industry.
I wanted to bring my technical expertise, industry experience, and social business know-how to help accelerate the growth of the digital health economy. To achieve this, I recently partnered with health tech innovation catalyst, patient experience expert, and former Google technology manager Irma Rastegayeva to form eViRa #HealthTech Strategies. Boston-based and globally-connected B2B experts, we are a trusted social media partner to clients across the health tech landscape. Whether it’s enabling startups to get discovered and introduced to potential partners and investors, guiding companies to expand their thought leadership, or helping clients to grow massive online audience and deepen user engagement, we are here to serve the health tech community.
What areas of healthtech are you most passionate about?
- AI, Cognitive Computing, Big Data, IoT and predictive analytics – combination of these technologies will open up a new era of early diagnostics and disease prevention.
- Telemedicine/Telehealth – this will become a mainstay of patient care delivery, vastly reducing costs.
- 5G connectivity – this 5th generation of mobile technology will be a truly “disruptive innovation” and will offer much to fields of medicine and healthcare. One application of 5G I am excited about is rural hospitals collaborating with urban teaching hospitals to offer world-class training and care delivery. It’s important to note that 5G is an enabling technology, it will make the advancements of all the other technologies I mentioned possible.
- Wearables 2.0 and Mobile Health – these improved medical wearables devices and drug delivery systems will be widely used, allowing remote patient monitoring of chronic conditions, also reducing costs and improving patient comfort and clinical outcomes.
- AR and VR – Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies will have a wide range of applications, including medical training, life sciences, real-time surgery assist, mental health treatment, and many more.
Which healthtech influencers influence you?
Outside of healthtech who else influences you?
- Bill Gates – philanthropy
- Marc Benioff – workplace equality
- Stephen Hawking – sheer brilliance and perseverance
- Gary Vaynerchuk – original insights and contrarian thought leadership
- Angela Merkel – leadership, smart politician, doing what may be unpopular but is the “right thing to do”
Which brands or products stand out for you in healthtech?
- Apple – up and coming in health tech, admire the investments they are making in the field. For example, open sourcing the chip design for Apple-assisted hearing aids.
- IBM Watson Health – bringing the power of Cognitive Computing to cancer diagnostics and care, and other healthcare challenges.
If a brand wanted to work with you, what offline / online activities would you be most interested in?
- Social Media engagement, thought leadership, brand message amplification
- Podcast/video interviews
- Content development (e.g. short-form/long-form blog posts, feature articles, whitepapers)
- Events (promoting, covering/attending)
What would be the best way for a brand to contact you?
Mobile: 978-761-1524 or Email: kirstel@gmail.com