Just when you thought we were done with Pop!Tech…we're not. The conference wraps up today and I thought it would be a good time to give a run down of some of the highlights (or at least what I thought were highlights) from yesterday.

Obviously the biggest splash this year at Pop!Tech is Project Masiluleke, which I wrote about in my piece for today's paper.

But here's the thing about Pop!Tech, even when there's a big splash, there's a bunch of smaller ones that are just as fascinating.

For instance Friday afternoon epidemiologist Gary Slutkin tried to make a simple case: Can we fight violence the way we fight infectious disease? Here's a quote and think about whether he was talking about inner-city violence or The Plague?
"Death was common everywhere, a daily occurrence. People afraid, not wanting to go into certain areas. People who are infected themselves being blamed for it," he said.
Well, OK, he was talking about The Plague, but it sounded a little applicable to crime and violence, right?
Slutkin made the case that just like infectious disease and epidemics, violence has root causes, certain areas are more susceptible to it and if untreated and unrecognized can spread and become a contagion.
It sounds crazy at first, but consider it.

Also speaking of ideas that sound crazy at first, Dr. Jay Parkinson wants to tear down the current health care system. The same one that could make him a pretty well off general practitioner. But Parkinson got tired of the old system, not too long after he made it out of med school.

Parkinson created Hello Health, a company that wants to strip down the health care system in try and make it less expensive to patients. That means cutting out unnecessary costs (Parkinson and a small group of doctors work out of a small storefront in Brooklyn) and trying to re-connect with patients. For example he charges patients a $35 a month subscription fee and has rates for things that would normally be called consulting.

But Parkinson communicates with patients through IM, emails, video chats, and social networking. He also maintains a blog. For Parkinson the way to fix the system is cutting down unnecessary office visit costs, but also having a relationship with patients that doesn't just start and end with "why are you here" and "here's your prescription, thanks for coming."

Before last evening I really didn't know who Juan Enriquez is and thanks to the fact that I was writing on deadline, wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. But then he started to deconstruct the financial crisis, the housing market collapse and how the American economy could end up in the garbage can.
"If we don't stop it right now it's like not going into surgery when you have cancer," he said.
Enriquez is a the CEO of Biotechonomy, a company a research and investment firm for life sciences and has spoken at Pop!Tech before. But yesterday he seemed to have the crowd captivated, looking at how over the last several years the housing and credit markets have been disjointed. Enriquez made the case that some have already made, pointing to deregulation, ballooning corporate profits and rising federal debt as symptoms.

Enriquez's prescription calls for serious cutbacks and putting all federal programs on the table, including things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Like I said, I was half paying attention because I was on deadline, but I would encourage anyone who wants to know more to check out Pop!Tech's video of his presentation.

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