Music, Healthcare, and the Reality of Building Cross-Industry Innovation
3 min read
Innovation, Healthcare, Music, Research, Partnerships, Public Speaking, Strategy, Events, Sollos
At SXSW London, a panel of founders, researchers, and operators explored what it really takes to build credible innovation at the intersection of music, health, and technology.
Working on innovation across complex industries?
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to speak at SXSW London as part of a panel exploring the growing overlap between music, healthcare, and emerging technology.
The session brought together researchers, founders, clinicians, and strategists to look beyond hype and ask a more difficult question: what does it actually take to build credible, impactful innovation when industries collide?
One of the strongest themes that emerged was trust. Healthcare demands rigour, evidence, and accountability. Music and creative industries thrive on intuition, emotion, and experimentation. Bridging the two requires respect for both worlds, not the dominance of one over the other.
We talked openly about the risks of shallow innovation. When complex domains are treated as feature sets or marketing angles, the results rarely stand up to scrutiny. Real progress comes from collaboration between disciplines, early involvement of experts, and the willingness to slow down when the problem deserves it.
What made the conversation valuable was its honesty. There was no single “right answer,” only shared experience from people who have seen what works and what fails. Innovation in sensitive spaces isn’t about moving fast at all costs. It’s about moving deliberately, with clarity on purpose, responsibility, and impact.
Events like this matter because they create space for those conversations. Not pitches. Not panels for the sake of visibility. But genuine exchanges between people trying to build things that last.
That mindset runs through how we approach work at Diverge. Complex problems don’t respond well to shortcuts. They need structure, curiosity, and the patience to get the foundations right.