LIFE and TIME are the world’s best Teachers.

“LIFE and TIME are the world’s best Teachers. Life teaches us how to make good use of TIME and TIME teaches us how much the value of LIFE.” - Dr. Abdul Kalam

Thank you for taking your time to attend the virtual Celebration of the Life of Dr. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, an event organized by American Association for Precision Medicine (AAPM)’s Indian community (AAPM India) and the Lead India Foundation. It has been over six years since Dr. Kalam left us. However, it was great to see that his mission and vision are still alive in our hearts and minds. And his teachings about action-oriented leadership have motivated us in taking massive action during the ongoing pandemic.

As Dr. Kalam once said "Look at the sky we are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the BEST to those who dream and work." Let us all continue working toward fostering a better tomorrow and continue dreaming big as well as working hard towards achieving those dreams. Dr. Kalam once mentioned, “never complain about difficulties in life, because a director (the force) always gives the hardest roles to his best actors.” So let us all be the change we would like to see in this world by playing our respective roles in society; the harder the role, the more capable we become in making a lasting impact.

As you all know, AAPM is on a mission to unite the global precision medicine community. And this meeting brought us a step closer to that goal. As COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions of patients, including front-line workers critical to this fight. And have exposed us to the existing vulnerabilities in our healthcare system. AAPM has been on the front-lines of this fight. We were the first to form the ACT: AAPM Coronavirus Taskforce (ACT), the first global?COVID-19 taskforce in January 2020.

AAPM launched its India initiative (AAPM India) in AAPM’s Global Precision Medicine Summit (GPS) 2020 Summit, in the presence to top global industry experts and academicians, and physicians. When the second wave devastated India, AAPM ACT created a coalition to procure and ship lifesaving equipment such as ventilators, BiPAP, oxygen concentrators, and personal protective equipment (PPEs) to hospitals in India and other countries where there is a need. The coalition was collectively able to send over four and a half million US dollars worth of life-saving equipment and supplies to India. As experts have warned that the next wave of Covid-19?is imminent, we stay alert and prepared to continue helping those in need.

AAPM India is on the mission to unite the precision medicine stakeholders in India. We are intending to exchange the leanings from the precision medicine ecosystem in the US and around the globe. In the US healthcare is very much structured and complex, however, in India, and some other developing countries the healthcare is still fragmented. That provides us with an opportunity to contribute to the growth, structuring of healthcare in those regions, as well as the opportunity to implement precision medicine.

AAPM' community global locations

Hope you enjoyed this event as much as we did, hearing from thought leaders whose lives were impacted by Dr. Kalam and who are committed to furthering his mission and vision. The event brought together a diverse crowd including scientists, clinicians, patient advocates, entrepreneurs, investors, industry executives. We also had politicians, policy experts, renowned authors, public relations experts, members of the media and film industry present among us as luminaries. Also, members of an Indian Royal family attended the event and shared their plan of making a biopic focused on Dr. Kalam’s life, which we believe is a great way to preserve and share the philosophies, life struggles, triumphs, and resilience of Dr. Kalam.

Yet again, AAPM was successful in bringing together an amazing community to share their experiences and inspiration. We hope the meeting was productive for you. We believe that we were successful in promoting cross-talk within the community to pave the way to transform the healthcare ecosystem in India.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the organizing committee, moderator, panelists, speakers, and participants for taking time out of their busy schedules to contribute to this event. I truly enjoyed interacting with all of you and am looking forward to staying connected.

Again, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all your help and support in making this is a memorable event. We hope to continue seeing you at our future events. We welcome your feedback to continue improving our events (please send your feedback at [email protected]).

Lastly, as Dr. Kalam said, “when I am gone, do not declare a holiday. Instead, work a day extra.” I believe in organizing this event we all have collectively done our share of putting extra work in Dr. Kalam’s honor. Thank you!

The event is now available to be watched on YouTube on the link below: