TC310: The Future of Digital Health

Dr. Patricia (Patty) Mechael is principal and policy lead at HealthEnabled, a South African based non-profit focused on nationally scaled integrated digital health systems. With over 20 years working in more than 30 countries primarily in Africa and Asia, Patty is celebrated for her roles as thought leader, writer, researcher, professor and executive director of the mHealth Alliance. She is a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow, Johns Hopkins University Knowledge for the World Distinguished Alumnus Award Recipient, British Council UK Education Social Impact Award Recipient, editorial board member of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and co-editor of mHealth in Practice: Mobile technology for health promotion in the developing world. Dr. Mechael holds a PhD in Public Health and Policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Masters in Health Science in International Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Sean Blaschke spent much of the last twelve years working on the convergence of technology and development in West, Central and Southern Africa. He witnessed the explosion of mobile phone ownership in rural Gambia in late 2001 during his work with Peace Corps and two years later, while serving as the National Media Coordinator for the Department of Forestry, was instrumental in building key partnerships between fledgling telecommunication companies and the Gambian Government. Between 2007-2009, Mr. Blaschke earned his MA in Economic and Political Development at Columbia University, and in 2008, began work with UNICEF HQ coordinating mHealth projects in Malawi (which won best global ICT innovation by USAID in their 2008 “Development 2.0 Challenge”), Rwanda and Ethiopia. Mr. Blaschke currently serves as the Technology for Development Business Analyst at the East and Southern African Regional Office at UNICEF.

Merrick Schaefer is the Development Informatics Team Lead at the US Global Development Lab, USAID’s innovation lab, where he helps lead their Ebola efforts in using technology to improve disaster response and recovery.

Before joining USAID he was a Senior Innovation Specialist at the World Bank and a Technical Lead at UNICEF where he was a founding member of the UNICEF Innovation Team.

His work focuses on the intersection of technology and international development. It ranges from strategic program design to managing software development as well as implementing programs in the field and monitoring and evaluating ICT4D projects. Two defining projects of his career were managing the development of the RapidSMS software framework and leading Programme Mwana in Zambia, one of the first mHealth programs to be scaled nationally.

Merrick started working as a web developer in 1995, having a front row seat to the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. He has worked on enterprise systems while consulting to Accenture, as well as creating websites for small businesses and non-profits while running a web development consultancy. He graduated from the University of Chicago where he earned a BA in Medical Ethics when not hacking on web projects.

Ernest Ostro is the Director of Applications for the International Rescue Committee, with responsibility for enterprise applications, data services, ICT4D, and software development. He has been involved with internet technologies since 1989 and has worked to deliver rational technology to end users in for- and nonprofits involved healthcare, logistics, open-source projects, e-Commerce, startups, and research on ecology. He was previously the IT Director at Pathfinder International.

At MobileODT, Cathy focuses on pilot management and strategic engagement with implementers, partners, and donors as a member of the Global Partnerships Team. Cathy has a background in women's empowerment and prevention of gender-based violence with a focus on program design, private sector engagement, and policy planning across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Prior to joining MobileODT, Cathy worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Center for Global Development and the UN World Food Programme. Cathy holds a Bachelor of Arts from the George Washington University in International Affairs, and conducted her research on improving access to basic health services for vulnerable populations in South Africa.

Erin Quinn is a Project Manager at Dimagi where she works with diverse clients ranging from grassroots organizations to government ministries to enable the effective use of mobile technologies in education, health, and agriculture.  Erin has worked on 15+ mobile technology projects across Asia and Africa. Most recently, she has worked on large-scale digital system for tracking and enhancing care for tuberculosis patients in India. Prior to Dimagi she worked for Westat, a US government contractor, on projects related to teacher quality and after school programming. Erin holds a masters degree in International Development from American University's School of International Service, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Iffat Zafar is the Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer for Sehat Kahani ,a telehealth company which works on improving basic health care in communities through a spectrum of services focused on primary health care consultation, health awareness and health counseling utilizing ICT enabled platforms. She is currently doing her Masters in Global E-Health from University of Edinburgh for which she has been awarded with the Commonwealth Scholarship. She has also been selected for Good Fund Fellowship 2017-18 this year.

She is a 2016 Alumni of USAID TFP Program and also the MIT Sloan School of Management (for Entrepreneurship Development).She is also an Alumni at SPRING Accelerator Cohort 2 (2017) for Sehat Kahani where they are creating a Hub and Spoke Model catering to the health of adolescent girls in the low income communities of Pakistan.

Dr. Iffat Zafar has won notable awards which include Engro I am Change Awards 2016, KITE-OSLO Local Competition 2016, MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan (2015), Seedstars Regional Event (2015), Winner of “The best in Healthcare” at GIST (Global Innovation through Science and Technology) Tech I Event held United Nations Head-Quarters Kenya Nairobi (2015) for her former role at doctHERs. She has been a finalist for a few competitions that include Echoing Green (2015), Sandoz Hack 2017. She has also been a part of a well-known accelerator in Pakistan; Invest2 Innovate previously.

Aika has committed her career to building innovations that impact social change, movement and revolution. Aika has experience managing a variety of Health Informatics projects both in Canada and Kenya focusing on Infection Control Management, Cervical Cancer and Chronic Disease Management. Her most recent experience has been in developing and implementing low cost technology solutions within the Maternal, Newborn and Reproductive landscape in Kenya. Aika strongly believes that mobile technology is the next frontier in creating greater access to quality services and ultimately improving health outcomes at all levels of the society. Aika holds a Bachelor of Science in Computational Biochemistry from Carleton University, Post Graduate Certificate in Health Informatics from George Brown College and is an Acumen East Africa 2015 Fellow.

Paul Amendola is a health information systems and research professional with nearly ten years of experience creating evaluation systems for health programs in crisis and development contexts. He is the Executive Director of VecnaCares, an international NGO designing and deploying technology and information management in low-resource settings. The current project portfolio focus centers on electronic medical records, data quality training, and infrastructure deployment. In his previous position as the Technical Advisor for Health Information Systems with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Paul designed and implemented stream-lined monitoring and evaluation systems for IRC's health programming. He is based in Cambridge, MA.

Wayan Vota is a digital development entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience using new and emerging technologies to accelerate the social and economic development of communities.

Vota has created holistic, nationwide digital development programs in eleven countries across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. He is the co-founder of the Technology Salon, which brings technology and development professionals together in 12 cities, and ICTworks, the blog-of-record for the ICT4D community.

Vota has held a number of senior positions in the development sector, including roles at FHI 360, Development Gateway, Inveneo, Mercy Corps, and the International Executive Service Corps, among others. 

He holds a BA in business administration from the University of Central Florida, Orlando, and an MBA from the George Washington University School of Business.

Carl Kinkade serves as the Health Information System Resident Advisor Liberia at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Globally, he provides geospatial science, informatics, and surveillance technical support across the CDC, it's international offices, and it's public health partners. This work has spanned Global Disease Detection (GDD) field offices across the world where he has provided training and technical support for CDC staff and their partners. For GDD, he worked in China, Laos PDR, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Republic of Georgia, Egypt, Kenya, Guatemala, Colombia, and Brasil and over 50 countries for the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), Global HIV, and other programs.For the last three years, he has supported the Ebola Response in Liberia through many deployments during the response and now permanently resides in Monrovia to support the Ministry of Health for health system strengthening.

Judith Sherman is the Chief of UNICEF Malawi’s HIV and Aids program.

Atwood, a Fulbright alumnus, has nineteen years of successful experience in public health. He had been involved in all aspects of management related to health system strengthening. He contributed substantially to the management, design/implementation, and expansion of health management information system tailored to the people of Haiti. The health information systems he contributed to include but are not limited to aggregate-level and patient-data level to whom health care was provided both at institutional and community level. He has a sound experience working with international donors including the USG team particularly CDC, USAID, and UN-affiliated organizations. Atwood contributed to several scholarly articles.