President Barack Obama is due to end his time at the White House on January 20, 2017. What’s next for him after that? Healthcare and technology could be on his radar.
While George H.W. Bush returned with his wife to Houston where they reclaimed their civilian lives, and Bill Clinton became a best-selling author and globe-trotting power philanthropist, Obama may opt for a different post-presidential life from his predecessors.
Obama has devoted a great deal of effort during his presidency to furthering technology advances, from his Precision Medicine Initiative to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, he hinted that genomics and Silicon Valley may be part of his next chapter.
[Also: Cerner, IBM, Epic, Verily, others sign on for Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative]
"The conversations I have with Silicon Valley and with venture capital pull together my interests in science and organization in a way I find really satisfying," Obama told Bloomberg. "You think about something like precision medicine: the work we’ve done to try to build off of breakthroughs in the human genome.
"The fact that now you can have your personal genome mapped for a thousand bucks instead of $100,000," he added. "And the potential for us to identify what your tendencies are and to sculpt medicines that are uniquely effective for you. That’s just an example of something I can sit and listen and talk to folks for hours about."
While the President hasn’t given specifics on his exact plan after leaving the White House, it’s clear where his passions lie. And if his track record is any indication – proponent for universal healthcare, advocate for Vice President Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot – it’s clear we may see more of Obama in the healthcare or tech arena soon.
Earlier this spring, Obama alluded to CBS News that it’s likely he’ll need to catch up with sleep after he leaves the office. After that? "I’m going to be right out there with you doing work," he said.
"If I think about what would stir my passions had I not gone into politics, it’d probably be starting some kind of business," Obama said. "The skill set of starting my presidential campaigns - and building the kinds of teams that we did and marketing ideas – I think would be the same kinds of skills that I would enjoy exercising in the private sector."
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com