Summer School
Femtech meets Law
Dresden, 2 – 6 June 2025
Advancing women’s health across all ages through technology, regulation, and ethics
Joint project of HALL (Brussel) and EKFZ (Dresden) within the EUTOPIA Alliance
Digital technology for female health
In today’s healthcare landscape, the intersection of technology, law, ethics, and regulation is more critical than ever. Despite advances in medicine, gender disparities persist, leaving women’s health underfunded and underserved. Femtech, or digital technology for female health, is reshaping this space with innovations like digital health tools, wearables, and AI, but these advancements must address complex legal, ethical, and regulatory challenges to ensure equity and accessibility across women’s lifecycles – from adolescence to longevity.
The second edition of the HALL-EKFZ Summer School, Femtech Meets Law – Advancing Women’s Health Across All Ages Through Technology, Regulation, and Ethics is taking place in Dresden. This event will unite legal scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and industry experts to explore the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field.
Integration of technology, law and regulation to advance women’s health
To promote active learning, the Summer School will combine lectures with interactive sessions such as mentoring, case studies, and more. A wide range of topics is covered: including the regulatory, legal, and ethical perspectives of Artificial Intelligence applications in femtech, menstrual health innovations, femtech for healthy aging, health data governance, design thinking for women’s health technologies, gender bias in AI, global femtech ethical challenges and solutions, maternal and neonatal care, and intellectual property in digital health.
We aim to assemble a diverse group of lecturers from various academic, professional, and policy backgrounds to provide multiple perspectives on the themes.
Program 2025
The program consists of themes exploring the intersection of health, law, and technology in the femtech space. Through a combination of presentation-based sessions, interactive discussions, and mentoring opportunities, participants will engage with experts and peers to examine regulatory challenges, innovation in femtech, health equity, and the role of digitalisation, AI, and design thinking in women’s health. Each theme is designed to provide forward-looking insights, fostering collaboration and critical thinking in this rapidly evolving field.
A more detailed schedule will be communicated closer to the start of the summer school.
Confirmed Speakers
More information on speakers will be added soon.
Dr. Shada Alsalamah
World Health Organization
Dr. Andrea Biasucci
Confinis AG
Cécile van der Heijden
Axon
Anastasia Karagianni
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Anastasia Karagianni is a FARI Scholar and Doctoral Student at the LSTS Department of the Law and Criminology Faculty of VUB. Her academic background is mainly based on International and European Human Rights Law, as she holds an LL.M. from the Department of International Studies of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During her Master’s studies, she was an exchange student for one year at the Faculty of International Law at KU Leuven. She has been also a visiting researcher at the iCourts research team of the University of Copenhagen. Her academic research focuses on the “Divergencies of gender discrimination in AI”. Besides her academic interests, Anastasia is a digital rights activist, since she is a co-founder of DATAWO, a civil society organisation based in Greece for the advocacy of gender equality in the digital era. Anastasia Karagianni is MozFest Ambassador 2023, and Mozilla Awardee for the project “A Feminist Dictionary in AI”– of the Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence working group.
Rebecca Mathias
Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health
Dr. Liqaa Nawaf
Cardiff School of Technologies
Prof. Paul Quinn
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Tamara Radaković
Tamara Radaković Consulting
Shireen Saxena
Ada Health
Shireen is a seasoned healthcare leader with 15 years of experience in care system redesign, payment reform, health policy, and clinical AI/tech. She has worked with state and federal governments, providers, foundations, and life sciences companies across the US, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and has considerable business development, strategy, and implementation expertise.
Shireen is deeply passionate about increasing access and improving health outcomes for underserved and underrepresented populations, including shortening the path to diagnosis and treatment for women’s health and mental health. She is a member of the Atlantik Brücke Young Leaders Program and the HAA’s Women’s Health At Work Advisory Board. Shireen is currently the VP of External Affairs and Chief of Staff at Ada Health. She holds a BA in psychology from Barnard College of Columbia University and MSc in international public health and gender studies from Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
In her free time Shireen is an avid chef, rescue animal volunteer, trauma-certified yoga instructor, and New York State Department of Health-certified sexual assault and domestic violence counselor.
Lauren Tonti
University of Missouri
You want to join the Summer School?
Everything you need to know
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no application fee, and the expected tuition fee (depending on registrations) is:
- 300 EUR for Master’s and PhD students;
- 450 EUR for everyone else.
The tuition fee includes all the classes, light lunch and course materials, but not travel expenses and accommodation.
The application is free of charge. After the registration is closed, we will send you an invoice that will need to be paid within 14 days. Your registration will be final after receiving payment.
Admission to this Summer School is open to all who are active in this area, in the widest sense of the word (as a researcher, a legal professional, a professional in the industry…). Master’s and PhD students are also welcome to apply for admission. Applicants will be selected based on qualifications and motivation, and a broad perspective of opinions will be considered, as we believe that conflicting opinions and diverse backgrounds nourish fruitful discussions and scientific progress. We’re committed to offering education that includes everyone, making sure all participants feel valued and supported in their learning.
Application
For your application, we ask you to provide us with a motivation letter of maximum 400 words during the registration process.
Please note that all lectures will be in English, and we expect participants to be adequately proficient to follow the lectures and have a discussion in English. We require no proof of language proficiency however, as obtaining such proof can be time- and money consuming.
Applications will be open until April 28, 2025. You can apply here.
Personal data
Your personal data will be processed solely to assess whether you are a suitable candidate for the Summer School and to contact you for additional information. Should you not be selected or decide not to withdraw your candidacy, your personal data will be deleted once admissions are closed. If you are selected, your personal data will be used in the context of this summer school (i.e., for the performance of our contract), and to inform you about future events organized by HALL or EFKZ for Digital Health or future editions of this Summer School, or newsletters relating to the topics covered during the Summer School. You will always be able to unsubscribe from such communications, and can object to us processing your personal data for these objectives by sending us an e-mail. For more information on how the EKFZ processes personal data and your rights as a data subject, please click here.
The second edition of the Summer School will take place at Dresden University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus in house 92 (MITS). You can use the map Carus Navigator of the campus. The EKFZ for Digital Health is located in the red area in house 10 and MITS is located in the yellow area in house 92.
We advise participants to use the rich public transport network DVB (Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe) to get to campus and around Dresden. The bus (64) and tram (6,12) stops at Augsburger Straße or bus 62 at Pfotenhauer Straße.
Participants are expected to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements.
Contact us
Rebecca Mathias (Program Manager)
Else Kröner Fresenius Center (EKFZ) for Digital Health, University Hospital Dresden
Fetscherstr. 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany
Organization Team
Rebecca Mathias | Program Manager
Prof. Stephen Gilbert | Co-Coordinator
Dr. Uta Gutbier | Event Manager
Franziska Kiel | Event Manager
Ashwinee Kumar | Program Manager
Oguzhan Yesiltuna | Program Manager
Prof. Paul Quinn | Co-Coordinator
Discover Dresden
Known as ‘Florence on the Elbe’, Dresden is a city that combines rich history, stunning architecture and a vibrant cultural scene. From the iconic Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) and the magnificent Zwinger Palace to the lively Neustadt district, there’s plenty to see and do.
Walk along the banks of the River Elbe or explore world-class museums. With its welcoming atmosphere and dynamic academic environment, Dresden offers the perfect mix of study and leisure for an exciting week.
See you this summer!
© TUD/Nils Eisfeld
Partner
This Summer school is a collaboration between the EKFZ for Digital Health at TUD Dresden University of Technology and HALL, the Health and Ageing Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
The Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health at TUD Dresden University of Technology and University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden was established in September 2019. It receives funding of around 40 million euros from the Else Kröner Fresenius Foundation for a period of ten years.
The center focuses its research activities on innovative, medical and digital technologies at the direct interface with patients. The aim is to fully exploit the potential of digitalization in medicine to significantly and sustainably improve healthcare, medical research and clinical practice.
The Health and Ageing Law Lab (HALL) is a team of researchers who specialize in themes linked to matters of health and ageing. In particular, its members conduct research in multi-disciplinary areas such as privacy and data protection; use of advanced technologies in healthcare, pharmaceutical development and research; e-Health and m-Health; and healthy ageing. It is a subgroup of the Interdisciplinary Research group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and hosts the annual HELT [Health, Law, and Technology] Symposium in Brussels.