Episode 19 · Turkey
Digital health innovation with refugees. A founder's story.
Dr Aral Surmeli · Founder and CEO, HERA Digital Health
Sep 2025
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About this episode
As underserved communities go, refugees are among the most vulnerable. Aral Surmeli is the founder of HERA Digital Health, which has built an AI-powered tool serving Syrian refugees in Turkey - initially targeted at mothers-to-be and mothers with young children missing antenatal and child development appointments. This is not a shiny rainbow story. It's about real struggle, USAID funding being cut, and what it means to keep going when the communities you serve don't get to quit.
“The communities he is serving do not get to quit. Why should he.”
Dr Aral Surmeli
What we cover
- 01In humanitarian settings, context is not static - it is always changing
- 02HERA hired developers who were themselves in the refugee camps: short feedback loops, immersed context
- 03"Build with, not for" - the most powerful example of what this actually means
- 04The downstream effects of missed antenatal and child development appointments - and what Aral saw in the ER
- 05Cultural sensitivity in health solutions: what works in one community may not transfer directly
- 06Navigating USAID funding cuts and the stop-work order: how Aral prioritised survival
- 07Defining success differently: not about HERA surviving or Aral succeeding - about the impact to those people
- 08Digital identity as a critical challenge for displaced populations
- 09Why humanitarian innovation cannot rely on investors or market returns - and what governments and philanthropy must do instead
About the guest
Dr Aral Surmeli
Founder and CEO, HERA Digital Health
Dr Aral Surmeli is the Founder and CEO of HERA Digital Health, a nonprofit that helps refugee women and children access local healthcare through AI-powered digital tools. HERA has served over 300,000 users across Turkey, the Middle East, and Africa, providing immunisation reminders, prenatal care tracking, and digital health records accessible via WhatsApp and offline apps. The platform is open source, co-designed with local healthcare workers and refugee communities, and integrates with national health systems and NGO services. Dr Surmeli holds an MPH from Harvard and is pursuing a DrPH at Johns Hopkins. He is a former Innovation Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and has been supported by Google.org, Grand Challenges Canada, MIT Solve, and Harvard iLab.
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Transcript
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