#15 - Susanne Baars, CEO of Social Genomics - On saving millions of lives by sharing genomes on a global scale

My guest on the podcast this week is Susanne Baars, Founder of the Global Human Genome Foundation and CEO of Social Genomics

Susanne is known as the Dutch DNA Queen. She’s a woman on a mission, which is to create Universal Access to Genomic Knowledge for every human on our planet. Susanne is an exponential tech innovator and genetic expert. In the past ten years, she has come to realize that no single person owns their DNA – the material that makes us who we are. The same material that empowers us to solve the world’s deadliest diseases. Because of this, she founded the Global Human Genome Foundation, a moonshot initiative to provide the world population the key to their DNA and enable them to share data with scientists around the world.

During this interview, we focus on the big idea behind Susanne’s mission and explore what’s required to deliver exponential value – The mindset, what to look for, what questions to answer, how to start, the key choices you need to make, and what people or partners to gather around you… Here are some of Susanne’s quotes:

“For me, it's a global mission to make genomic knowledge available for every person on earth.

...every year millions of people are dying because of a lack of access to available data. I think that's just not right, and we should do something with this.

It's to dare to think big. It's knowing what you know, the unique knowledge that can make a change in the world, and to be able to think differently. Not linear or locally, but try to think, "How would I like to see the future?"

It's usually the biggest world problems that end up with the best business models.

Follow your dream, follow your heart, and the best thing will happen to you.”

By listening to this interview, you will learn three things:

1. That innovation is not always about creating technology yourself, but more about leveraging available technology in creative ways to deliver remarkable impact
2. How a bold vision can work as a lever to accelerate execution
3. And why focusing on problems is not always the best way to uncover untapped potential