Episode 18 · Bangladesh
Evolving beyond verticals and funding what matters in healthcare
Rubayat Khan · Director of Health Programs, Endless Foundation
Jul 2025
Listen on your preferred channel
Listen
About this episode
A systems thinker, entrepreneur, and now investor, Rubayat Khan brings the rare perspective of someone who has been a patient, builder, and funder. We unpack what it means to move beyond vertical health solutions, how to prioritise innovation in an era of shrinking aid budgets, and how LLMs might unlock integrated, people-centred care in low-resource settings - including why a 48-second doctor consultation in Bangladesh makes the case for AI more powerfully than any paper.
“Most of what we call healthcare happens outside clinics. If we ignore that, we miss the biggest opportunity for real impact.”
Rubayat Khan
What we cover
- 01Why governments are not always best placed to design people-centred care: clinics in rural Bangladesh open 10am–2pm when everyone is working in the fields
- 02Four priority areas Endless Foundation is focusing on
- 03How LLMs could shift the access, quality, and cost curve in low-resource settings if implemented thoughtfully
- 04A 48-second doctor consultation in Bangladesh - and why Rubayat's own parents find LLMs more useful
- 05Why self-care is the blind spot we can no longer afford to ignore
- 06The dangers of "digital colonialism" and what needs to change in global AI governance
- 07Evaluating AI against the right counterfactuals - not Western standards, but local reality
- 08What funders can do differently to support impact beyond rhetoric
About the guest
Rubayat Khan
Director of Health Programs, Endless Foundation
Rubayat Khan is a health entrepreneur and technologist from Bangladesh, and Director of Health Programs at Endless Foundation, a US family foundation reimagining how global health innovation is funded and delivered. He co-founded mPower Social Enterprises and Jeeon, which have pioneered innovative models for delivering healthcare and essential services to last-mile populations across 15 countries, currently reaching over 120 million people. A passionate advocate for bottom-up and user-centred thinking in global health, he has written in the Guardian, SSIR, and Frontiers in Public Health. He is an Acumen and Aspen New Voices Fellow.
Chapters
Transcript
Working in digital health?
Heard something relevant to your work?
Shubs consults on clinical leadership, evidence strategy, and digital health market access. If this conversation sparked something, it is worth a conversation.
Shubs takes on consulting work with startups, investors, and global organisations across digital health.
Working on something in digital health?
→ Get in touchSend to a friend
You might also like
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Get new episodes direct to your inbox.
No spam. Unsubscribe at any time.