Patrick Veron is an entrepreneurial business consultant who has been a key actor in the development of digital infrastructures and businesses for more than two decades.

A strong believer in “technology with a purpose”, Patrick helped launch innovative health-tech and digital health solutions in Asia, with a focus on building relevant business models to achieve growth in rapidly changing environments. He has also supported various e-health initiatives and organized forums for start-ups interested in bringing their tech innovations to Asia.

Patrick has also advised several digital health companies and incubators on their strategy to enter Asian markets.

Nils is an adviser for Digital Development and ICT4D based in Dakar, Senegal. As founder of kaikai.dev, he leads a team of local and regional advisers that provides strategic, program design and technical consulting to organizations like GIZ, Facebook, PATH, and the private sector. His work focuses on West Africa, and he believes in strengthening local ownership, open solutions, and partnerships with the private sector.

He has gained significant experience in the domain of digital health. In 2014, he was the technical lead of the National Call Center for the Ebola response in Guinea and subsequently led national-level digital programs for disease surveillance in Sierra Leone. He has worked for USAID’s innovation lab in building local ecosystems for digital health and in partnering with mobile operators, and advised Digital Square on Global Good investments. His current work focuses on leveraging technical capacity on the African continent and building data-exchange partnerships based on standards.

On top of his passion and 15+ years of experience in IT, he has a background in Public Administration and Political Science, a M.Sc. in Information Systems from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Dr. Richard Gakuba has served as an international digital health consultant for over 16 years, with experience in 10 countries in Africa. He has a medical degree and a master’s degree in e-Health/Digital Health from Brunel University in London, and a medical degree from the National University of Rwanda.

Dr. Gakuba served as the national e-Health coordinator for Rwanda’s Ministry of Health for nine years, where he led the development of the first National eHealth Strategic plan and policy in 2006 and the creation of the digital health unit in the Ministry of Health.

He was awarded the Holly Ladd mHealth Pioneer Award. Dr. Gakuba is also an Eisenhower Fellow.

Ather Saeed is an experienced business consultant who works at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and health equity.

With seats on multiple digital health boards, Ather has a keen interest in Program Management and helps organizations increase their market share by keeping portfolios profitable. He was the CEO of two digital health organizations, leading them to successful exits. He has worked across a multitude of domains including Digital Health, Public Health, Diagnostics, Aged Care, and Telecommunications. Ather has lived and worked in Australia, Singapore, Uganda, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and with the World Health Organization and national governments of Nepal, Pakistan, and East Timor.

Ather also advises digital diagnostic companies on their strategies to enter new markets.

An entrepreneurial business strategist and fundraising expert, Femke Smeets brings over 15 years of experience in innovative healthcare financing and delivery projects as well as blended finance and public-private partnerships for development. Since early 2020, Femke co-leads an impact investment advisory and management venture, called Total Impact Capital (TIC) Europe. As partner at TIC EU, Femke leads the healthcare advisory and thought leadership projects. In this position, she is currently advising several companies and organizations, including Philips, the Health Finance Coalition, and AMREF amongst other, on developing, fundraising, and building supportive local ecosystems for high-impact partnership projects and ventures. She has moreover set up a catalytic debt fund for emerging local investments funds in Africa.

Femke has experience in healthcare investing, health insurance, digital health, healthcare PPPs, NCD service and finance models and capacity building of healthcare entrepreneurs. In her previous position as head of Business Development for the PharmAccess Group, she headed a team responsible for raising EUR 20 million a year in grant funding for innovative health finance projects. At the Medical Credit Fund, she set up the Capacity Building Facility in partnership with African business schools. Prior to this, Femke worked as health investment consultant, and as policy advisor for the Dutch Ministries of Economic and Foreign Affairs. Femke holds degrees in Business Administration (BSc) and Political Science (MSc) and finished an executive INSEAD leadership/business program in 2018. She is also a board member of FRES, an energy social business that advances rural electrification in vulnerable settings, such as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau.

An expert in medical informatics and eHealth, Prof. Bagayoko is currently Head of the Innovation and Digital Health Center at the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako in Mali. He brings over 25 years of experience to DHP, having managed and implemented major eHealth projects, notably through expert missions carried out across multiple African countries and Europe, but also through his role as General Coordinator of the Network in Francophone Africa for Telemedicine.

Prof. Bagayoko is the Vice-President of the Francophone Interest Group within the International Medical Informatics Association, a member of the board of the Pan African Health Informatics Association (HELINA), a full member of the Malian Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics.

Author of numerous scientific publications, Prof. Bagayoko has been awarded many scientific and honorary distinctions, including the Swiss government postdoctoral Excellence Fellowship, the Mali National Medal of Merit, and the “RFI Challenge App Afrique” award.

An international expert in data warehousing, systems integration, and formulation of digital health strategies, Dr. Stephen Mburu has contributed to health informatics research and the development of digital health solutions across various domains. These include analysis of digital ecosystems, data modeling, as well as development of policies, strategic plans, standards and guidelines, and integrated systems for low- and middle-income countries.

Currently, Dr. Mburu is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Nairobi in Kenya and a systems developer working with the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Palladium Group, USAID, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, PATH, and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ). Some of the development projects he has delivered include: integrated African Health Observatory (iAHO), Data Capture Tool (DCT), Kenya Health and Research Observatory (KHRO), OpenIMIS in Nepal, and LamisPlus 2.0 in Nigeria.

Dr. Mburu is a graduate of PhD in Information Systems (Health Informatics) at the University of Nairobi in collaboration with Technische Universität Dresden (TUD). He also holds a Master of Science in Information Systems and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science.

A senior manager for healthcare information technology and telehealth programs at Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, a public charitable trust in India, Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran has coordinated the implementation of a wide range of digital health solutions in hospitals over the past 20 years.

Jai is a member of the Governing Council of the Asia eHealth Information Network, the Global South eHealth Observatory’s Expert Committee, the World Health Organization’s Roster of Experts on Digital Health, the Broadband Commission’s Digital Health Working Group, and the Bureau of Indian Standards’ Health Informatics Sectional Committee. He is also visiting faculty at the Manipal College of Health Professions, under the aegis of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.

Holding two master’s degrees, in Science and in Business Administration, Jai is currently part of the taskforce from the International Medical Informatics Association charged with revising the Guidelines on Education in Biomedical and Health Informatics.

Joseline Carías Galeano is a Latin-American specialist and project consultant on digital transformation, focusing on the social sector. A digital health promoter and networking activist, she is currently the General Manager and member of the Board of Directors at the Central American Health Informatics Network - RECAINSA. Created in 2013, this organization was formed by leaders and volunteers of digital health in her region with the intention of supporting national and regional digital health strategies and generating spaces for the exchange of experiences and best practices in both the public and private sectors.

Joseline is the co-creator of several projects for women professionals in Latin America, with the objective of achieving greater participation of women in the field of digital health. She is also an expert member of the Digital Health working group of the ITU Broadband Commission and UNESCO, expert member of the Technical Committee of the Global Digital Health Index, expert member of the Campaign and Data Policy Circle at the coalition of Transform Health, and co-chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Small Working Group at the Digital Health & Interoperability Group.