The 2025 edition of the Synthetic Data Summit focused on new developments in the area of synthetic data generation and its promise to help solve some of the difficult challenges in healthcare. The specific use cases of privacy (data access and data sharing), data augmentation, and de-biasing datasets were highlighted. These were examined for real world data and clinical trials data. The perspective taken was applied, with an emphasis on practical solutions, case studies, regulations, adoption, and expected future developments. With a unique combination of industry, academic, government, and regulator presenters, this one-day summit provided attendees with a well-rounded look at synthetic data generation and how it may be leveraged.
Links to recordings of the Summit Sessions on Vimeo can be found below as well as copies of the presenters' slides.
Opening Remarks and Welcome (recording) presented by Khaled El Emam, University of Ottawa
Session A: Privacy of Synthetic Data
- Keynote: Unlocking the value of data while protecting privacy (recording) presented by Patricia Kosseim, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
- A Framework for Evaluating Privacy Vulnerabilities in Synthetic Data (recording) presented by Lisa Pilgram, University of Ottawa
Session B: Synthetic Data Generation Technology in Practice (recording)
- Synthetic Data for Accelerating Data Access and Innovation presented by Lucy Mosquera, Aetion
- No One-Size-Fits-All: Rethinking Privacy, Utility & Value with Synthetic Data presented by Daniel Blumenthal, MDClone
- Assessing the Validity of Synthetic Patient Data and Industry Application presented by Echo Wang, Merck
Session C: Adoption of Synthetic Data (recording)
- What's Holding Us Back? Rethinking the Barriers to Synthetic Data Adoption presented by Alexandra Ebert, Mostly AI
- Patient Centric Synthetic Data: A trustworthy and versatile approach presented by Morgan Guillaudeux, Octopize
Session D: Government and Academic Applications (recording)
- Using and Creating Synthetic Data at Statistics Canada presented by Deirdre Hennessy, Statistics Canada
- Democratizing Data in Academic Health Science Centers presented by Alan Forster, McGill University Health Centre