Bertin Nahum
Pro-Chancellor, distinguished friends, colleagues, graduands and guests.
Often labeled as a “diverse entrepreneur”, Bertin Nahum’s career is best characterised by an unrelenting willingness to advance the technological capacity of healthcare and introduce innumerable innovations to the industry.
Bertin has devoted his career to creating medical technology solutions to enhance surgical interventions, including creating the latest generation of robotic assistance to use during operations. These robots contribute to safer and more stable implementation of both more effective and less invasive treatment – putting it simply, it really can be a matter of life and death.
A highly-acclaimed Coventry University alumnus, Bertin was born in Dakar, Senegal, to a family of grocers before moving to Lyon in France.
In his youth, he enjoyed sport, music and technology, before attending the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon, where he achieved an Engineering Degree. He then went on to study a Masters in Robotics right here, at Coventry University. We are delighted to welcome back Bertin today to celebrate the achievements of his career to date and feel proud that Coventry University has been able to play a small part in that success.
At the end of his engineering studies, Bertin took part in the design of software capable of automatically detecting brain lesions on CT scans. This feeling of usefulness gave him the desire to dedicate his career to patients - albeit on the engineering side - through the design of robots that could assist physicians.
After moving into the field of medical engineering, Bertin has held various management positions in companies specialising in surgical robotics. In 2002, he founded and became president of Medtech, located near Montpellier in Southern France, which designs and markets top of the range medical robotic technology.
It was at Medtech that Bertin pioneered a robot called BRIGIT, which was put to use assisting doctors with orthopaedic surgery and provided mechanical support for intricate operations.
However, the ambition of this project pales in comparison with Medtech’s latest iteration of robot assistant, which is an integrated multi-application platform called ROSA, enabling surgeons to perform extremely complex brain surgery with far greater ease and accuracy.
Medtech was elected Frost & Sullivan’s European Company of the Year for surgical robotics in 2013.
In September 2012, Bertin received high-praise indeed when he was ranked 4th in the top 10 of the most Revolutionary High-Tech Entrepreneurs in the Canadian magazine ‘Discovery Series’. The ranking positioned him just behind Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and James Cameron. Among the criteria used by Discovery Series, entrepreneurs had to make breakthrough innovations, to think beyond what most people consider possible and to create innovations that improve people’s lives. However it is classified, Bertin’s work in surgical robotics has played an absolutely essential part in healthcare’s technological evolution.
One year later, in September 2013, Bertin Nahum was awarded the Chevalier insigna in the French National Order of the Legion of Honour, which he received from Fleur Pellerin, then Minister Delegate with responsibility for Small and Medium Enterprises, Innovation, and the Digital Economy.
Bertin has two sons, aged 15 and 11 and in his spare time, he enjoys sport, reading and watching movies.
In recognition of his revolutionary contribution to the medical profession by improving surgical procedures using robotic medical technology, Coventry University, by decision of the Academic Board, has the privilege of conferring the Honorary Doctor of Technology, honoris causa, on Bertin Nahum.