Geneva University Hospitals (HUG)
Dr Oliver Kannape is the founding Director of the Virtual Medicine Center (VMC) at the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG). As first center of its kind, the VMC is integrating XR technology across HUG with a focus on patient care, clinical research, and medical education. Oliver’s tenure as Scientific Coordinator at MindMaze has further seen him pioneer XR applications for chronic pain, refractory breathlessness, and substance use disorder. These roles allow Oliver to bridge academia, industry, and healthcare to drive medical XR innovation.
Translational Research:
As a cognitive scientist, Oliver has a broad training and research background combining Virtual and Augmented Reality, motion capture, and neural interface technology with experimental approaches from psychobiology and cognitive neuroscience. His research has progressed from a focus on the neuroscience of multisensory perception, sensorimotor control, and corporeal awareness, during his PhD at EPFL, to applying their principles in the clinical domains of neuroprosthetics (at MIT), digital therapeutics (MindMaze), and medical XR (VMC). Oliver’s experiences from an early career award from the Swiss National Science Foundation to over a decade of translational research using XR technologies, uniquely positioned him to become the founding Director of the Virtual Medicine Centre at the Geneva University Hospitals.
Editorial Affiliations:
Oliver is a founding member of the American Medical Extended Reality Association (AMXRA) and member of its journal’s inaugural editorial advisory board (Journal for Medical Extended Reality, JMXR). He is also associate editor for Assistive Technology, the journal of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA).
University of Manitoba
Kimberly Workum
Senior Instructor
College of Nursing
Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba
Kimberly Workum is a nursing educator and leader in the field of simulation and VR/AR/XR technology. As the Director of Digital Strategies and Senior Instructor at the College of Nursing, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, she has played a pivotal role in shaping the future of nursing education.
Kimberly's credentials include a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Charles Sturt University, an Adult Education Diploma from Red River Community College, and a Master of Education from Charles Sturt University. She is also certified as a Canadian Certified Nurse Educator and is a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator.
Kimberly has held various positions at the University of Manitoba, including Director of Skills, Director of Simulation Centre, and is currently the Director of Digital Strategies and CCA Centre. She and her team launched a successful Virtual Reality (VR) program in the College of Nursing's high-volume undergraduate program, where students have spent over 1000 hours in VR this year. She has also incorporated VR/AR/XR technology into other programs within the College of Nursing and Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. Recently launching a high stakes nursing competency assessment conducted in VR.
This Centre is based in Manilla Philippines for foreign-trained nurses moving to Manitoba to access. Kimberly is an active member of several nursing, simulation, and XR organizations. Her dedication to nursing education has earned her numerous awards, including the Association of Regulated Nurses Award of Excellence in Nursing Administration, the Outstanding Nursing Unit, Program, or Interprofessional Team Award for Simulation, and the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences CPD Educator of the Year.
With her expertise in simulation and VR/AR/XR technology, Kimberly is paving the way for innovative and immersive learning in healthcare education and training.
Kuopio University Hospital
Ahmed Hussein MD PhD, is a Neurosurgery Consultant with 20 years of experience in the field, The Clinical Instructor of the Microsurgery Center of Eastern Finland and a Research Director for surgical Innovation in the University of Eastern Finland. He gained global experience in the neurosurgical practice by training in 4 different continents (USA, Europe, Asia and Africa). The diversity in his educational background motivated
him to dedicate part of his time to contribute in the establishment and managing the Microsurgical Center of Eastern Finland, a surgical training center with passion in developing medicine and support medical industry.
Ahmed’s main goal was to involve the state-of-art updated medical technology to provide best solutions in health care education and services. He worked as surgical advisor for many innovative projects and startups over the past decade as well as participating and collaborating in funding application for different medical Innovation projects. As a personal interest, Dr.Hussein is managing international projects for medical technology development and educational exchange. He believes that improving health care services is based on improving the educational tools for health care personnel. Hussein has completed his medical degree at Assiut University/Egypt Neurosurgical Residency fellowships in Hospital Kuala Lumpur/Malysia, Allegheny General Hospital/Pittsburgh/PA/USA, Kuopio University Hospital/Kuopio/Finland.
Lately, his research focus was about image processing in surgical application and objective
evaluation of surgical skills. Through managing the Microsurgical center of Eastern Finland, Ahmed has been able to offer the facilities and collaboration and sustain the growth of numerous regional startups with patented medical technologies like Seetrue Technologies, VR4Health, Marginum, Surgify and Surgerix.
H’ability
Marie-Odile McKEENEY is the CEO and co-founder of H'ability, an innovative startup focused on virtual reality solutions for rehabilitation. With a background in computer engineering, she combines her technical expertise with a passion for immersive technologies to enhance patient care. H'ability offers a gamified, portable VR platform used by healthcare professionals, including physiotherapists and occupational therapists, to help in the motor and cognitive recovery of patients affected by strokes, trauma, or chronic conditions like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.
H'ability has partnered with major healthcare institutions, including the CHU d’Angers, to ensure their solutions meet clinical needs. The platform allows patients to engage in therapeutic exercises in an interactive, motivating environment, aiming to reduce pain perception and speed up rehabilitation.
NextGenSurgery
Richard S Hart BA MD FRCSC
Founder/ CEO/ Surgeon NextGenSurgery Inc.
Dr. Richard Hart is a visionary leader and an internationally recognized expert in Hepatobiliary, Pancreatic, and General Surgery. With a career spanning over three decades, and having the surgical service he created designated a "Centre of Excellence"
by Cancer Care Ontario.
Dr. Hart holds degrees from York University and the University of Western Ontario where he also completed General Surgery residency and fellowship training in HPB and Transplantation with the Multi-Organ Transplant Program and a further year as clinical fellow, overseas post Hammersmith Hospital in London, UK. He is a proud recipient of
multiple awards, reflecting his contributions to surgery and medical education.
With passions colliding, he is integrating cutting-edge neurotechnology, bci, and
psychophysiological assessment into the training ecosystem of Surgery culminating in the operating room. His pioneering work with NextGenSurgery Inc. aims to create a new paradigm in surgical education, focusing on developing elite performance in stress resilient surgeons and OR teams to address the problem of preventable harm.
The program and its DNA come from his own experiences and teachings as an elite athlete, Dr. Hart competed internationally for Canada in freestyle wrestling before becoming a surgeon. His unique perspective and experiences in optimal performance combined with scalable wearable tech and XR are at the heart of his IoSxT Theory, using neurotechnology and bci to train "the bidirectional flow of information to manage the requisite biobehavioral, cognitive, affective and technical skills for elite performance in critical moments using data science. Positioning him as a thought leader in the field, recognized for his surgical training innovations.
Dr. Hart’s passion extends beyond his professional life—he is also a dedicated father who enjoys spending time with his son exploring life's realities and wonders while instilling a philosophy of lifelong learning.
His commitment and passion for excellence, both in his professional endeavors and personal life, drives his relentless pursuit of innovation and the outer limits of human possibility.
HirLan
Virginia has thirty-nine years of experience in the areas of product design, Customer Centered
Participatory Design processes, and product lifecycle management. She is also known in the Human Computer Interaction and Usability Communities for her innovative techniques for collecting and incorporating user/customer feedback throughout the product lifecycle. In July 2014, Virginia founded and established the HirLan Institute of Human Factors with labs in Carlsbad, California and a Consortium arrangement in London, UK. HirLan has been supporting Top Ten pharma/medical device companies, as well as start-ups with consulting and testing services for the last 15 years. These services are in conjunction with their clients’ FDA 510(k) and CE mark applications, as well as establishing Human Factors Processes and SOPs.
Virginia holds a PhD in Cognitive-Experimental Psychology from SUNY Binghamton, and a Master of
Science (ABT) in Applied Technology, Systems Science from SUNY Binghamton.
Leiden University Medical Center
Dr. Samuel Max, BM BCh (Oxon), blends his expertise in engineering with his medical proficiency as a physician and PhD candidate at Leiden University Medical Center's Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Having graduated from the Universities of Surrey, Utrecht, and Oxford where he achieved prizes as first in his cohort at each institution, he is now pursuing a PhD in the field of the medical XR technologies. Sam coordinates the design and development of a virtual reality simulation platform for surgical healthcare professionals, and leads a project focused on producing AI-driven digital twins for ECMO machines and Heart-Lung Machines.
University of Bristol
Mairi Deighan is a biomedical engineer currently in the final months of her doctoral studies at the University of Bristol, England. Her PhD research focuses on investigating the challenges and opportunities associated with the integration of VR technology in teenage and young adult oncology. During her PhD, Mairi has engaged in collaborative efforts with clinicians, healthcare professionals, and, more recently, a group of young people diagnosed with cancer. Together, they co-designed novel VR applications tailored for cancer services in the UK. Her PhD is funded by Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Mairi’s passion for VR technology stemmed from the research experience obtained during her master’s degree. She developed and tested a VR application designed to evaluate the sound properties of spatialised sound engines. Her overarching goal was to create a virtual hearing assessment for children dealing with single-side deafness. Since then, Mairi has conducted research exploring the use of social virtual reality platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting this work at CHI 2023. Her work promises to be transformative in the emerging field of VR in paediatric and teenage oncology, with broader implications for the intersection of VR technology and healthcare.
Softcare Studios
CEO
Softcare Studios
Tech entrepreneur focused on digital health and mental well-being, TEDx speaker, and writer. Biologist, Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology, with International academic research experience in pharmacology, organic chemistry, and molecular biology in the fields of oncology and neuronal metabolism. CEO at Softcare Studios, a digital health startup specialized in developing virtual reality solutions for stress management and therapy education in patients undergoing medical treatments. A regular contributor to online magazines on the topics of emerging tech, healthcare, and startup ecosystems. Actively involved in education, communication, and consulting initiatives focused on innovation and social impact.
Radboud University Medical Center
Harry van Goor, MD, PhD, FRCS
Professor of Surgical Education
Digital Innovation Scientist
Past Interim Chair
Department of Primary and Community Care
Radboud University Medical Center
Harry van Goor, MD, PhD, FRCS is a Professor of Surgical Education, an digital innovation scientist, and past interim chair of the Department of Primary and Community Care of the Radboud university medical center. He has published over 400 peer reviewed papers and book chapters in a broad field of surgical care, medical device development and digital technology supported healthcare innovation. He is leading several technology tracks in the ‘fewer Bricks, more Bytes, different Behaviour’ (BBB) programme to improve care and wellbeing of patients, and healthcare workers in- and outside the hospital, including intuitive personalized wayfinding, continuous monitoring with wearable devices and predictive analytics, Ambient Intelligence in the hospital and at home, and Virtual Connected Care. He has chaired a European private-public program R4Heal, that develops and validates an integrated healing system. In this program several VRx projects are performed on acute and chronic pain management, Fit4Surgery and rehabilitation for various purposes in-hospital and @home. Harry van Goor led the team of in-hospital and hospital@home continuous monitoring of vital signs during the COVI19 crisis and the post- COVID VR@home rehabilitation program (COVRehab, COVR2Home). Harry is advisor of several (inter)national start-ups in digital health and of medical device companies and member of the program committee of European Healthcare Design congress in the UK. He has been awarded the Digital Healthcare Professional prize in 2022. He is a Frank Lloyd Wright connoisseur and is passionate about mid-century architecture.
Hôpital Ambroise Paré
Laura Limonta is a medical doctor and PhD candidate specializing in the application of virtual reality (VR) for healthcare education. As the Research Lead at Uptale, an innovative platform for immersive learning, Dr. Limonta focuses on integrating 360° virtual reality solutions into medical training programs. Her work aims to enhance student learning experiences and improve patient outcomes through advanced educational tools.
Dr. Limonta holds a medical degree from Havana Medical School and a Master’s degree from Université Paris-Saclay. At Uptale, she leads research initiatives that explore the use of VR in medical training, particularly in areas such as pain management and morphine titration. Her role involves driving research that supports the development and implementation of immersive learning technologies for healthcare professionals.
With a background in clinical practice, research, and healthcare consulting, Dr. Limonta is dedicated to advancing the integration of VR into medical education. Representing Uptale, she works to help organizations adopt immersive learning solutions that improve the quality of healthcare training and ultimately, patient care.
University of Geneva
Dr. Stavros Skouras is a cognitive neuroscientist with a background in Extended Reality (XR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), with multi-year experience working at the nexus of clinical research and MedTech innovation. He has held the position of Scientific Collaborator in the Laboratory of
Neurology, Imaging and Cognition, at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Geneva, as well as the position of Innovation Project Manager in the Neurology Clinic of University Hospital Inselspital Bern. Prior to this, Stavros was an
Associate Professor in the Department of Biological and Medical Psychology at the University of Bergen in Norway, and served three early-stage VR therapeutics startups as Scientific Director, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Data Analytics. He has taught neurocognitive research methods in several universities,
including the University of Zurich, the Free University of Berlin and the Pompeu Fabra University. Stavros’ special interests include scientific software design and medical devices, and he is the lead guest editor of the Frontiers in Neuroscience special topic on Translational Applications of Neuroimaging.
Valkyrie Industries
Ivan Isakov, CTO and co-founder at Valkyrie Industries. After 8 years working in academia (UCL & Imperial College London) on nanoelectronics, he co-founded Valkyrie Industries to bring haptic technology to industries and consumers. For the last 7 years in the company, he has been developing a variety of haptic products, including suits, gloves and armbands, and has created multiple VR experiences in creative, industrial, and healthcare fields. He has pioneered muscle haptics, the immersive use of neuromuscular stimulation for fitness and recovery. He is an international speaker, educator and a creative coder.
New Mexico State University
Sylvia Gabriela Phillips is a college assistant professor and director of the graduate dietetic internship program at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in the United States. She is a licensed Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) in the U.S. Phillips’ professional background includes work experience in clinical nutrition, food
service, and community nutrition. She has worked in acute care, sports nutrition and community health settings, and currently has a partnership with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, in the U.S. Phillips’ journey in the academic field has been marked by pushing boundaries and challenging conventional teaching techniques. Her primary goal as the dietetic
internship program director at NMSU has been to close the gaps between the classroom and real-world professional practice.
While clinical placements are always a challenge for dietetic interns in southern and inland regions of the United States, these roadblocks have provided an opportunity for Professor Phillips to develop remote learning curricula including using virtual reality and simulation dietetics to teach graduate courses at NMSU since 2017. Phillips identified a clinical dietetics curriculum gap for RDNs, as VR curricula had been developed for physicians and nurses, but not RDNs, who are an integral part of the health care team
in a clinical setting.
Phillips, who is fluent in both English and Spanish, has built from scratch the only dietetics simulation and virtual reality lab in the state of New Mexico with proprietary VR dietetics curricula in both English and Spanish. For her contribution to the field of dietetics, she received the New Mexico Outstanding Dietitian of the Year award in 2023, and continues to advance dietetics curriculum development using VR technology and
artificial intelligence mannequins.
Phillips holds a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and food science from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, a master’s degree in family and consumer science with an emphasis in human nutrition from New Mexico State University, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at NMSU, where she is conducting research on folic acid fortification of nixtamalized corn products.
Yale School of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Yale School of Medicine
Director of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology
Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Program
Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital
Asher M. Marks, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine and practicing pediatric hematologist/oncologist. He is the Director of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology and also serves as the Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) cancer program for Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.
While his clinical research frequently focuses on the care and treatment of children with brain tumors, his role as the director of the AYA program has led to the development of a virtual reality-based support group for adolescents and young adults with cancer. In collaboration with Foretell Reality, a clinical trial was launched in the fall of 2019, with very exciting early findings.
In addition, Dr. Marks serves on the Board of Directors for Child’s Play, a game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children in hospitals and domestic violence shelters, through the power of play.
Mayo Clinic
Dr. Aman Anand is a Board-Certified Senior Radiation Physicist and the Director of the Mixed Reality Oncology Lab at Mayo Clinic. Trained
at U.T. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (UTMDACC), Dr. Anand played a key role in commissioning proton centers both at UTMDACC and Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where he also helped establish advanced clinical care practices.
Currently, he leads pioneering initiatives that blend virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance clinical workflows and patient experiences. His flagship project, HopeSphere, which virtually transports patients into treatment units to connect with loved ones, has gained widespread interest across RadOnc
department that he now wishes to expand to other units such as but not limited to: end-of-life care, infusion centers, and ambulatory services. Recognized with several competitive awards, Dr. Anand’s innovative work is now receiving institutional support. His expertise extends to haptics, digital twins, and machine learning, where his contributions continue to shape the future of oncology care.
SenseGlove
Gijs den Butter is the co-founder of and chief product officer at SenseGlove, a Dutch company developing and commercializing the SenseGlove Nova. A wearable force and vibrotactilefeedback glove that enables lifelikeinteractions in XR. And helps companies to createrealisticcontrols for tele-robotic solutions.Gijs holds its master’s in design engineering from the Delft University of technology. Gijs isspecialized in human computer interaction and entrepreneurship. Prior to foundingSenseGlove Gijs worked as UX designer and consultant.
OramaVR
Dr. George Papagiannakis, co-founder and CEO of ORamaVR is a computer scientist specialised in computer graphics systems, extended reality algorithms and geometric computational models. ORamaVR (www.oramavr.com) is a Swiss deep-tech startup that aims to accelerate the world’s transition to medical VR training by offering an IT platform (MAGES-SDK) enabling the mass production of high fidelity medical Virtual Reality Simulations. These simulations are then been used by hospitals, medical device companies, medical schools and medical training centres to train and assess their medical professionals.
His academic credentials include serving as Professor of Computer Graphics at the Computer Science department of the University of Crete, Greece, as Affiliated Research Fellow at the Human Computer Interaction Laboratory of the Institute of Computer Science in the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Heraklion, Greece, where he
leads the CG Group and as visiting Prof of CS at the University of Geneva. He has more than 100
publications in the field, and he is a member of CGS (Board Member), IEEE, Eurographics, ACM and SIGGRAPH professional societies. In 2011 he was awarded a Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Career Development from the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency.
He was conference chair of the Computer Graphics International 2016 Conference, in cooperation with CGS, ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics Associations. In 2017 he published a Springer-Nature book on Mixed Reality and Gamification which achieved more than 77.000 downloads so far. His pioneering research has attracted more than 2M EUR external funding at FORTH-ICS and more than 5.5M external R&D funding at ORamaVR.
Anagram
Sean has a well established track record of delivering commercially driven and customer focused programmes across the public and creative sectors in the UK and internationally.
At Anagram, Sean leads on Inside Mental Health, a new immersive, empathetic training tool, developed with healthcare professionals for healthcare professionals. Inside Mental Health adapts Anagram’s award winning Playing with Reality collection to innovatively bring stories of those with lived experience of mental health conditions to the centre of the healthcare sector.
onlinelive GmbH
Norwin Kandera has been designing communication measures for renowned companies worldwide for 30 years. As a graduate economist and MBA/Design Management, he has dedicated himself to the topic of meaningful, emotional and effective communication.
His focus is always on discovering and developing new, innovative communication concepts and technologies. A specific focus are communication concepts for the healthcare ecosystem. Together with his clients and partners, he explores, develops and implements new ways of using VR/MR/MR in communication between doctors and patients, physicians, hospitals and industry.
His expertise ranges from conceptual and creative thinking to analytical and strategic approaches and precise implementation. Norwin Kandera cultivates long-term partnerships and manages projects with unusual and innovative approaches.
hypnoVR
HypnoVR is the leading Digital Therapy in Pain & Anxiety Management, used in over 500 hospitals and clinics in 10 countries. Prior to founding HypnoVR Nicolas has spent 20 years in the technology and digital industry, both in product management and business development functions.
Since 2015 Nicolas is a co-owner of Culture Dot Digital and Ozango, 2 companies enabling cultural institutions to embrace the digital revolution by building products and services that help them reach current and new audiences.
In 2014 Nicolas joined PayPal as Senior Director of Products, EMEA, in charge of leading and developing PayPal's product strategy for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
Before joining PayPal, Nicolas spent 5 years at Microsoft where he grew the digital media presence of MSN in France and was also one of the founders of youmag, a mobile content service, sold to FIMALAC at the end of 2013.
Nicolas is a graduate from EDHEC Business School in France and holds an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.
DiverSsiTy SA
Anne-Laure Héritier is Co-Founder and CEO of DiverSsiTy SA, a Swiss-based Health tech
start up focused on personalized care solutions for ASD teenagers using MR.
She is an accomplished leader in e-health innovation and a specialist in mental health and
neurodiversity. With extensive experience in digital health and embedded system, she has a
robust background in developing pioneering projects and tools, particularly in the areas of
autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Since 2018, she has also directed initiatives for the pioneer ASD Center for Exceptional
Children(CEC) in China with SIMC SA, Geneva, advancing medical device development and
e-learning support in autism. With over two decades of experience, Anne-Laure contributes
significantly to neurodiversity care innovation.
Virtual Switzerland
After holding leading roles in the communication and marketing fields, Laetitia Bochud joined the scene of immersive & spatial technologies in 2017 with Virtual Switzerland, which she helped create and grow. The association fosters the development, integration, and technological transfer of Swiss XR. Besides building initiatives, getting involved in projects and productions, Laetitia is also a university guest lecturer, jury member, and public speaker. She works as a consultant, chairs the XR4Europe association and heads the IMPULSE Programme – the European XR Accelerator. Aside from this, she is a board member of the TPG / the Geneva public transportation company.
IVRHA
Executive Director and Founder
IVRHA
Robert is the Executive Director and Founder of IVRHA (International Virtual Reality and Healthcare Association).
In 2009, Robert started Cool Blue Media by organizing the first social media conference on the east coast of the United States, leading to the publication of the text book, "The Big Book of Social Media Case Studies, Stories and Perspectives" and shortly thereafter the only printed magazine covering social media, The Social Media Monthly. In May 2016, he launched VRVoice.co, a content vertical exploring virtual reality in the enterprise. In 2017, Robert started the largest annual conference on virtual reality and healthcare with events taking place both in the US and Europe.
Prior to 2009, Robert was the Senior Director of Global Strategy and Development of IT at Conservation International (CI). Robert joined CI in 2000 to take responsibility for connecting all of CI’s forty field offices to the Internet with broadband connectivity. During his 10 year tenure, he built an international staff of 25 IT professionals.
Robert has over ten years of additional work experience as a systems and sales engineer with various companies including CMGI, Hughes Network Systems, ioWave and Raytheon. Robert has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University, a master’s degree in environmental science and public policy from Johns Hopkins University, and is ABD at George Mason University.
Location To Be Announced
Robert Fine
Dr. Oliver Kannape
Dr. Richard S. Hart
Dr. Laura Limonta
Dr. Valentino Megale
Gijs den Butter
Dr. Mairi Therese Deighan
Dr. Asher Marks
Dr. Harry van Goor
Dr. Virginia Lang
Kimberly Workum
Dr. Aman Anand
Nicolas Schaettel
Robert Fine
Dr. Oliver Kannape
Dr. George Papagiannakis
Marie-Odile McKeeney
Sylvia Gabriela Phillips
Dr. Ahmed Hussein
Dr. Samuel Max
Sean Carroll
Norwin Kandera
Dr. Ivan Isakov
Dr. Stavros Skouras
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