ALL EPISODES
Every conversation.
Every continent.
27 Episodes and counting
Clinicians, founders, researchers, and policy makers doing the hard work in digital health across under-resourced settings. The lessons travel.
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27 episodes total
Apr 2026
Enhancing newborn care in rural eastern Congo: how a tool built alongside nurses changed everything
Dr Josh Bress · Pediatrician; President, Global Strategies; Medical Director, NoviGuide
The most vulnerable moment in any human life is the first few hours. Shubs talks with Dr Josh Bress, pediatrician, President of Global Strategies, and Medical Director of NoviGuide, a tool used nearly half a million times to help nurses in remote facilities across Africa manage critical newborn care. Josh shares his experiences from Eastern Congo, why paper guidelines fail at the bedside, how configuration (not customisation) is the key to scaling, what it actually looks like to delight frontline health workers, and what has kept his team going through 15 years of building at the last mile.
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Mar 2026
How to develop AI that addresses health inequities
Joe Alderman · NHS Anaesthetist and NIHR Clinical Lecturer in AI, University of Birmingham
Joe Alderman has a rare double view: anaesthetist by night, AI academic by day. His insights on what it takes to deploy and monitor AI in healthcare - with a lens on not leaving people behind - are relevant wherever in the world you are. We cover health data poverty, the STANDING Together initiative, algorithmic bias, LLM safety for patients and clinicians, anti-patterns in the industry, and what people building in low-resource settings specifically need to think about.
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Feb 2026
Digital innovation in humanitarian settings
Javier Elkin · Former Head of Digital Health, ICRC
How does an organisation like the ICRC - working in conflict zones, disasters, and last-mile settings across the world - approach digital transformation? Javier Elkin spent three years building the ICRC's digital health unit from scratch. He shares the prioritisation framework he developed, two landmark implementation examples (including using DHIS2 to spin up a trauma tracking system in two weeks), and the extraordinary MOOVE/Medotron initiative to validate and contextualise LLMs for humanitarian settings where 'call 911' is not a useful answer.
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Jan 2026
USAID cuts, women's health and leading the right way
Dr Patricia (Patty) Mechael · Co-founder and CEO, health.enabled
Recorded live at the Global Digital Health Forum in Nairobi in December 2025, Patty Mechael brings nearly three decades of mHealth and digital health experience into a wide-ranging conversation on the state of global health after a year of upheaval. We cover the USAID funding crisis, repeating patterns from the 1990s, women as both decision-makers and consumers of health technology, how to evaluate digital health tools in ways that actually matter, and what compassionate leadership looks like when the incentives don't reward doing the right thing.
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Jan 2026
Why displaced people need a digital identity
Nadia Kadhim · Co-founder, Naq
There are 43 million people displaced through conflict and environmental disaster. Their likelihood of accessing good healthcare is already poor - and as we race towards algorithmic decision-making, they are becoming invisible in the data underpinning it. Nadia Kadhim, co-founder of Naq and daughter of an Iraqi refugee, explores what digital identity and data ownership really mean for displaced people, why this is an everybody problem, and what builders, policymakers, and funders need to do differently.
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Nov 2025
Evaluation level up: Measuring what matters
Dr Shay Soremekun · Epidemiologist and Co-deputy Director, Centre for Evaluation, LSHTM
Everyone's talking about LLM evals and benchmarking. But ultimately people care about impact - and impact is rarely a neat linear path to a yes/no answer. Dr Shay Soremekun of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine shares what it took to evaluate a digital health tool for community health workers in Mozambique and Uganda: program theory, logic models, process evaluation, and an unexpected finding that changed everything.
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Oct 2025
Social impact in a time of scarcity, and the power of community
Nick Martin · Founder and CEO, TechChange
Nick Martin is one of the biggest voices in social impact - a connector, builder, and community organiser who has spent two decades training Ministry of Health officials and bringing global digital health people together. We talk about the USAID funding crisis: what happened, what it revealed, and what the sector needs to do differently. Plus: the Global Digital Health Forum, fail festivals, and how to navigate a career and an organisation in a world of scarcity.
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Sep 2025
Digital health innovation with refugees. A founder's story.
Dr Aral Surmeli · Founder and CEO, HERA Digital Health
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.
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Jul 2025
Evolving beyond verticals and funding what matters in healthcare
Rubayat Khan · Director of Health Programs, Endless Foundation
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.
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Jul 2025
Healthtech comms. Communicate your impact
James Somauroo · Co-founder and CEO, SomX
Your metrics don't matter if no one gets the message. James Somauroo has hosted over 400 podcasts and built one of the most influential media and comms agencies in healthtech. We cover why so many well-intentioned digital health projects fail to scale - not because the tech or evidence isn't good enough, but because the story isn't being told in a way people understand or care about.
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Jun 2025
How the World Health Organization is evolving
Dr Alain Labrique · Director, Digital and Innovation, World Health Organization
A conversation on the future of the World Health Organization, rethinking how we approach digital implementation and funding in LMICs, and what it really means to decolonize global health. Alain Labrique - shaped by a childhood in Dhaka and decades of implementation science - offers a refreshingly honest take on the USAID funding crisis, the quiet collapse of digital infrastructure it has triggered, and where WHO is focusing next.
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May 2025
Implementation 101 and how to fail well
Caroline Perrin · Executive Director, Geneva Digital Health Hub
The Geneva Digital Health Hub's Caroline Perrin on what it takes to implement digital health well in LMICs - why most failures are predictable, the role of community health workers, and how the Implementome community is building a global learning culture around implementation.
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May 2025
From crisis to revolution: why Africa's moment is now, a healthtech VC's case
Rowena Luk · Managing Partner, Africa Health Ventures
A healthtech investor's view on healthcare in Africa over the next 10 years. Rowena Luk has built and scaled digital health in over 40 African countries. Now she's backing founders through her VC firm - and makes a measured, compelling case for why this moment of crisis is also the biggest opportunity Africa has seen.
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Apr 2025
Regulatory strategy for founders and policy makers
Hugh Harvey · Founder, Hardian Health
Practical breadth and depth on the global state of regulation from someone at the cutting edge of regulatory policy. The EU versus FDA divide, what only ~40% of African countries even having medical device regulations means for founders, why regulatory debt is a company killer, and what regulators could do better.
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Apr 2025
Health first, innovation second: Smisha Agarwal on what needs to change in global digital health
Dr Smisha Agarwal · Director, Center for Global Digital Health Innovation; Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Some hard truths on global digital health from one of the field's most clear-eyed researchers. Why health systems remain fragile, how digital tools scale without legitimacy, what's wrong with our fixation on significance values, and how global health is stuck in systems that haven't evolved.
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Mar 2025
Digital mental health research insights
Lucy Cesnakova · Program Lead, Digital Medicine Society (DiME)
Bringing research to implementation. Lucy Cesnakova from DiME shares insights from a landmark piece of research advancing digital solutions for mental health - with intentional representation across countries, income levels, and demographics. Universal commonalities, local nuances, and what builders and policy makers should take away.
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Feb 2025
Ethics for digital health companies
Jess Morley · Digital Ethics Center, Yale University
A special bonus episode: a focused cut of the conversation with Jess Morley on making ethics a real business priority for digital health companies - not a nice-to-have. How do you stop your ethical initiative from getting kicked down the roadmap when good intentions meet business realities?
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Jan 2025
Making ethics actionable in digital health
Jess Morley · Digital Ethics Center, Yale University
What does it actually mean to make ethics actionable - not just aspirational? Jess Morley shares hot takes on the UK's AI Action Plan, Ethics 101 for vendors and policy folk, how health system leaders can elevate ethical approaches in their ecosystems, and what builders at health tech companies can do when ethical imperatives meet business realities.
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Dec 2024
Policy insights from the Rwanda Ministry of Health and FIND
Rigveda Kadam & Andrew Muhire · Digital and AI Lead, FIND · Chief Digital Officer, Rwanda Ministry of Health
Closing out the year with two fantastic guests: Rigveda Kadam from FIND and Andrew Muhire from Rwanda's Ministry of Health. Building on Episode 8, this discussion dives into the critical connection between product development partners and ministries of health - and what it takes to create the conditions for successful digital health implementation.
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Dec 2024
Co-designing mental health solutions with young people in Rwanda
Dr Jana Alagarajah · Technical Lead, YLabs; Digital Mental Health Specialist
What does real, meaningful co-design look like? Dr Jana Alagarajah shares what he learned implementing a digital mental health tool with young people in Rwanda - how to listen before building, how to engage communities and carers, and how to get procurement and policy to genuinely value equitable solutions.
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Nov 2024
Supporting rural healthcare in India with technology
Ruchit Nagar · CEO and Co-Founder, Khushi Baby
A ground-level look at implementing technology to support India's community health workers - the ASHAs. Ruchit Nagar shares the challenges of integrating tech in rural healthcare, India's digital public health ecosystem, funding pitfalls, and the key learnings for anyone looking to implement at the last mile.
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Aug 2024
Impactful digital health transformation through a clear vision and values: insights from Eswatini
Echo Vanderwal · Executive Director, The Luke Commission
What can a tiny country enveloped by South Africa teach the world about digital health done right? Echo Vanderwal shares how The Luke Commission built healthcare for those who needed it most - from telehealth hubs in shipping containers and drone delivery of antivenom, to a bespoke clinician-centred EHR - all anchored in clear values and a vision of what great care actually looks like.
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Jul 2024
What is the right approach for regulation and evaluation of digital health technologies?
Stephen Gilbert · Professor of Medical Device Regulatory Science, Dresden University of Technology
A deep dive into digital health regulation with one of the field's leading experts - covering the DiGA fast track in Germany, PECAN in France, what's coming in the UK, stark differences between the FDA and EU approaches, and what health system leaders, policy makers, and developers should learn from all of it.
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May 2024
Creating impact with AI in isolated communities
Dino Audere · CEO Audere, CEO/Founder Audere Africa
How digital solutions and AI are revolutionising healthcare delivery in underserved and isolated communities - covering diagnostics, large language models, trust, and the critical role of local partnerships.
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May 2024
Bridging the gap: the last mile of healthcare
Bilal Mateen · Executive Director, Digital Square at PATH (now Chief AI Officer at PATH)
How do we meaningfully bridge policy and real impact at the last mile of healthcare? A conversation on digital health challenges and successes in underserved communities - covering safety, regulation, data infrastructure, community health workers, and the role of AI and large language models.
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Mar 2024
Practical solutions to health data poverty
Prof. Alexandre Chiavegatto Filho · Associate Professor of Machine Learning in Healthcare, University of São Paulo
How a team in Brazil is maximising the impact of data-driven technology for underserved communities - and what the global community can learn from Brazil's approach to data diversity.
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Mar 2024
Health data poverty: what can we do about it?
Dr Xiao Liu · AI ethics, evaluation and regulation researcher
A crucial conversation on one of the most pressing issues in global digital health: health data poverty. What it is, why it matters, and how we might begin to address it.
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