CONFERENCE “Breaking Barriers : Gender Equity in Digital Health” 10th October 2024

Dr. Agarwal, PhD, MPH, MBA, BDS is the Director of the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation and Associate Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She brings expertise in advancing primary health care through strengthening community health systems and leveraging innovative technological solutions including digital devices. Over the two decades, her research has been leveraged by normative agencies like WHO to develop guidelines on national digital transformation, donors to guide investments in primary health care, and governments to develop their national digital health strategies. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Open Digital Health Journal.

Dr. Aparna Hegde is a Stanford and Cleveland Clinic trained, internationally renowned Urogyneacologist. She is the founder of NGO ARMMAN, which creates scalable mHealth-based programmes to impact maternal and child health in 21 states of India (reach: more than 52 million women and their children and more than 400,000 health workers). Dr. Hegde is Associate Professor (Hon) and Founding Head of the University-affiliated Department of Urogynaecology at Cama Hospital, the only functioning Department in the field in India. Dr. Hegde is an accomplished researcher, an NIH grantee, and a pioneer in 2D/3D pelvic floor ultrasound. She is the Chair of FIUGA, the foundation arm of IUGA (International Urogynecology Association). Dr. Hegde is a Skoll awardee (2020), TED Fellow, senior Ashoka Fellow (2021) and was listed by Fortune as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in 2021. She has also won the Women Transforming India award by Niti Aayog in 2022.

Caroline Perrin Franck is Executive Director of the Geneva Digital Health Hub (gdhub) at the University of Geneva, focusing on data-driven knowledge management in digital health. Previously, as Program Manager for the RAFT distance learning and telemedicine network and the Geneva University Hospitals eHealth service, she focused on the design, development, deployment and evaluation of innovative health informatics solutions and multi-stakeholder partnerships to strengthen health systems. She holds a Master's degree in IT Management and a PhD in Global Health from the University of Geneva.

Executive Director of the Reproductive Health Network in Kenya, a network of qualified private healthcare providers who are passionate about providing quality, comprehensive reproductive health information and services. She is a nurse/midwife by training, an expert in health systems and policy, a global award winner, a human rights advocate and a former participant in the first East African Women Leadership Journey. She is passionate about protecting reproductive health rights as a means of ensuring gender equality and the realisation of women's full potential in life. At RHNK, she oversaw the expansion and growth of the network by training service providers and establishing links with local leaders and decision-makers for advocacy purposes. She grew the network to over 600 health care providers who supported the achievement of a comprehensive reproductive health services society. Under her leadership, RHNK has created and developed a movement of young people who contribute to the achievement of the organisation's mission. She is successfully engaged in national, regional and international forums advocating policy change and gender equality in the provision of sexual and reproductive health services. She was awarded the 2020 Planned.

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran (Jai) is the Executive Director of the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), with over 20 years' experience in implementing digital health solutions, such as hospital information systems, disease management portals and telemedicine. He sits on the board of the Global Digital Health Network (GDHN) and on several international expert committees. He is an adjunct faculty at Manipal University (MAHE) and facilitates convergence workshops for strengthening health information systems in the South and South-East Asia region.

Dr. Patricia (Patty) Mechael is co-founder and CEO at health.enabled, a global non-profit advancing whole person health through equity-focused technology in everyday life, digital health, and AI. She leads the Global Digital Health Monitor, a web-based platform to measure and monitor digital health maturity at the country level and gender-intentional intersectional approaches to strategy, analysis, planning, monitoring, and research. She is a Senior Associate Professor in the Department of International Health in the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she serves as Co-Principal Investigator for the Gates Foundation-funded Digital Health Exemplars Study. Patty is co-editor of mHealth in Practice: Mobile technology for health promotion in the developing world and award-winning author of the best-selling middle-grade fiction novel, The Antidotes: Pollution Solution. Dr. Mechael has a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Masters in Health Science from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Renu Khanna is a public health expert specializing in women's rights and reproductive health, with over 40 years' experience in teaching, training and transformative gender assessments. A member of the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health and Distinguished Fellow at the George Institute, she is also a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on Gender. Active in health movements in India, such as the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, and involved in high-level policy discussions, she has contributed to numerous international and national initiatives on reproductive health. Renu Khanna has also worked with the United Nations and co-edited several books on sexual and reproductive justice.

Alex Tyers-Chowdhury is a gender digital divide specialist at UNICEF, where she leads on product and partnerships for Oky, a digital sexual and reproductive health solutions for adolescent girls across Africa and Asia. Alex's passion is meaningful digital inclusion for women and girls, and she has 15+ years of experience working on research, policy and programme implementation for gender and digital programming. She particularly enjoys creating digital products and services for women and girls across Africa, Asia and Central America; this includes many years living in Bangladesh building gender x digital health and education solutions. Based in Malaysia, Alex is the co-founder and director of several gender and digital inclusion companies, and has previously worked with GSMA, USAID, BBC Media Action, the Web Foundation, UNCDF, WHO, Girl Effect, GIZ and the World Bank, as well as several mobile operators and start-ups. She currently splits her time between UNICEF, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Gender and Digital Connectivity team.

As the Policy and Research Manager at Speak Up Africa, Assiatou’s role is to manage and deliver high-profile research and development work. The role involves the design and development of projects; managing budgets and resources; working effectively with team members, partners, funders and other stakeholders; overseeing delivery of high-quality research; and ensuring that Speak Up Africa’s work makes an impact on policy and practice. Assiatou also leads the Speak Up Africa’s digital health portfolio, notably the African Women in Digital Health (AWiDH) initiative, an African Union and Africa CDC-lead initiative as a part of its Digital Transformation Strategy. Assiatou joined the Speak Up Africa team in October 2021 from Village Pilote, a non-profit organization focusing on children’s rights in Dakar, where she served as the Health Program Manager. Prior to that, she was a Senior Analyst at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) where she provided technical assistance and capacity building to state and territorial health departments, and developed policy analysis and advocacy tools for CDC-funded projects around disease prevention and control.

For nearly a decade, Nusura has been working in the areas of economic empowerment for young people and women, sexual and reproductive health, and improving girls’ access to quality education. She currently serves as Project Lead at Her Initiative, where she leads the Going Beyond Project, equipping youth and young women with digital business skills critical for success in the 21st century. At Her Initiative, Nusura is also involved in monitoring and evaluating projects to enhance access to opportunities, sexual and reproductive health for women and girls. Through various projects, Her Initiative utilizes a hybrid model of sexual and reproductive health and rights and economic empowerment to influence sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Nusura’s journey began with her volunteer work with the Msichana Wa Kisasa Program in rural Tanzania, where she delivered a comprehensive curriculum of counseling, life skills, and entrepreneurship education to over 200 young girls. In her efforts to further impact, she founded the Pamoja Tunaweza (P.A.T.U.) bootcamp, dedicated to bridging economic gaps and addressing teenage pregnancies for young women and girls. Her work extends beyond Tanzania, having contributed to program development with Boston Women’s Fund, business development at BaoTree in Kenya, and launching the Love Project at the African Leadership University in Rwanda to promote mental health awareness. Nusura holds a BA in Global Challenges, with a focus on education and women empowerment.

Founder and CEO of datacraft, a club bringing together data/IA experts and 39 major companies, start-ups and 600 researchers. She previously headed the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires and held various management positions in the healthcare (VP marketing & strategy at Orange Healthcare), education and tech sectors. She is a director of the Healthcare Data Institute, a member of ARCEP's Scientific Committee on Networks of the Future, a member of the Scientific and Ethical Committee for Health Research, Studies and Evaluations of the French National Institute for Health Data (INDS), a member of the Scientific Council of the Artificial Intelligence and Cancer Sector and a member of the MoiPatient Patient Interest Committee. She teaches at X-HEC and ESSEC, and is committed to equal opportunities. She is a colonel in the citizens' reserve. She is personally involved in equal opportunities issues. She has degrees in political science and military strategy.