Introduction

The SIIM 2019 convention took place at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora (near Denver), Colorado. It’s a brand new large-size hotel with the allures of a Rocky-Mountain ski-resort, with a (by European standards) huge convention center attached to it. From the imposing entrance hall, a spectacular view of the snowy mountains was offered through a gigantic window, with in the foreground the vague outline of the Denver skyline.

In between the lectures at the SIIM meeting I was able to visit the Technical Exhibit several times a day. The SIIM is the American counterpart of the society of which I’m currently the president, EuSoMII. In the exhibitors’ hall a mix was presented of booths from the classical vendors (Agfa, GE, Carestream etc) and startups. The latter had been assigned their own “Startup Lane”. At the end of the hall a theatre had been constructed with a stage. It was surrounded by transparent plastic walls, probably with the idea of protecting it from the sound coming out of the exhibitor’s hall , which didn’t turn out to be very successful to be honest. In this theater, several interactive sessions were organized on topics related to Economics of AI, the shift to Enterprise PACS, reading from home, AI in practice, etc. The program is still available here, and the Twitter channel gives a good overview of the presentations that were given by each company. On the other side of the end of the hall scientific posters were presented, and in between both several smaller stands were positioned, representing the projects participating in the Innovation Challenge. All these innovative projects could compete during a pitch-session on Thursday afternoon, for a jury representing several hotshots in imaging informatics, such as Elliot Siegel and George Shih. The participants were subjected to the questions of the jury, which resulted in an exciting pitch-session. …