When Bente Krogmann moved to Africa over a decade ago, a cab ride through Rwanda sparked a question she couldn’t shake: what happens to people here when they get sick? That question became mTek, an insurance platform that embeds protection into the everyday transactions Africans are already making — and last year, it achieved a landmark exit through its acquisition by the global insurtech unicorn bolttech. In this episode, Bente pulls back the curtain on how she pulled it off — and why she’s just getting started.

About mTek

mTek is a leading Kenya-based insurtech reshaping East Africa’s insurance ecosystem through digital innovation. Established in 2019, mTek provides a fully digital, end-to-end distribution platform that seamlessly integrates general and life insurance products with both B2C and B2B2C functionality. The platform empowers more than 350,000 customers in Kenya alone to compare quotes from over 45 insurers and purchase coverage either upfront or through flexible installment plans.

About bolttech

bolttech is a global insurtech with a mission to build the world’s leading, technology-enabled ecosystem for protection and insurance. bolttech serves customers in 39 markets across Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa. With a full suite of digital and data-driven capabilities, bolttech powers connections between insurers, distributors, and customers to make it easier and more efficient to buy and sell insurance and protection products.

In This Episode

* (00m37s) Why healthcare financing in Africa needs a new approach

We begin with an exploration of the challenges of health financing and the unique opportunity of expanding mass-market health insurance uptake.

* (04m23s) Meet Bente Krogmann and the rise of mTek

Bente shares her journey from Germany to East Africa, how she built and exited a car wash company before mTek, and how her experiences in Rwanda inspired her to build a company focused on expanding access to protection and insurance.

* (07m20s) Why mTek pivoted from direct sales to embedded insurance

mTek shifted from direct-to-consumer insurance toward embedded distribution through pharmacies, travel platforms, retailers, and other trusted partners.

* (15m31s) Inside bolttech’s acquisition of mTekBente unpacks how the relationship with bolttech began, what global investors see in Africa’s future, and the realities of navigating an international startup acquisition.

* (24m42s) Selling Africa to global investors and corporates

A candid discussion about market timing, cultural fit, scaling African startups inside global corporations, and why founders often need to become advocates for Africa on the international stage.

* (33m52s) Lessons for founders on resilience, fundraising, and international markets

Bente reflects on the emotional highs and lows of entrepreneurship, investor alignment, preparing for exits, and why founders should treat entrepreneurship as “a game you want to win.”

* (39m05s) Founder to Watch: Caitlin Dolkart of Flare Emergency Response and Rescue.co

If you enjoyed this conversation about healthcare access at the last mile, check out our related interviews: Ikpeme Neto of WellaHealth and Femi Kuti of Reliance Health.

Key Quotes

“If you want to be the most global insurtech in the world, you have to have a play on Africa.”

“You need to see [entrepreneurship] as a game you want to win.”

“It’s not about becoming an insurance company. It’s about using technology to increase protection.”

Topics Discussed

* How embedded insurance could unlock access and protection in Africa

* How Bente navigated bolttech’s acquisition of mTek

* Why global investors and corporates are bullish on Africa

* Scaling insurtech businesses in African markets

* Founder leadership, resilience, and emotional stability

* Africa as a global growth opportunity

Connect with Africa Health Ventures

Africa Health Ventures invests in healthcare innovations that will dramatically improve access and quality of healthcare in Africa and around the world.

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What does it really take to deliver health and household products to the last mile at scale?

Joanna Bichsel is the Founder and CEO of Kasha, the leading digital commerce and last-mile delivery platform in Africa focused on health products and household goods. In this episode, Joanna shares how Kasha was born and scaled across nine countries to deliver over 110 million products. We unpack the tactics that have allowed her to scale her impact, including the varied and sometimes unlikely partnerships she’s needed to balance. Tune in to hear how this technology startup partnered with the government of Rwanda to create access to emergency contraceptives for young women, and how Kasha is working with global life sciences companies like Roche to help more women access breast cancer treatment.

This episode features insights from Jörg-Michael Rupp, who oversees Roche’s work in over 100 countries. Roche is an industry leader and global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics focused on advancing science to improve people’s lives around the world. This episode was recorded live at Africa Tech Festival 2025 in Cape Town, one of the continent’s largest gatherings of industry leaders, startups, and investors.

In This Episode

(00m54s) Meet Joanna and Kasha. Joanna Bichsel is the founder and CEO of Kasha, a fast-growing health access platform transforming how medicines and essential goods reach people across Africa.

(06m56s) Origin Story. Joanna shares the unexpected path that led her from Microsoft Corporation and the Gates Foundation to launching a startup in Rwanda.

(12m11s) Early Fundraising is a Struggle. Joanna recounts the brutal early months of trying to raise capital as a first-time female founder in Africa—and the mindset she needed to keep moving forward even when quitting would have been so much easier.

(17m03s) Partnering with the Government of Rwanda to Create Access to Emergency Contraception. Scaling healthcare requires more than technology—it demands collaboration with governments and policymakers. Joanna explains how Kasha, as a tech startup, is well-suited to managing real-time data and on-the-ground insights. This is the value they were uniquely positioned to provide the Government of Rwanda in order to inform national policy to expand access to emergency contraception for young women.

(21m53s) Partnering with the Global Pharmaceutical Company Roche. Joanna unpacks Kasha’s partnership with Roche and how collaboration with industry-leading pharmaceutical companies can dramatically improve access to life-saving medicines. Together, Kasha and Roche have developed innovative financing and distribution models to make breast cancer treatments more affordable for patients.

(28m54s) The Problem with Impact Investors. Joanna shares her candid and controversial perspective on impact investing in Africa. She challenges investors not only to build scalable businesses but also to take a long hard look at the double burden forced upon social enterprises by unrealistic impact metrics.

(34m45s) Perspectives from Roche. Jörg-Michael Rupp, who oversees Roche’s work in over 100 countries and is one of Kasha’s partners, elaborates on why solving healthcare access requires collaboration across industries. No single organization can solve healthcare challenges alone, but together we can dramatically expand patient access to treatment.

(36m57s) Stronger together. Breast cancer advocate Dr. Carol Benn highlights the real-world complexity of tackling women’s health challenges. She explains why meaningful progress depends on honest collaboration between governments, clinicians, innovators, and the private sector—even and especially when the roadmap ahead is unclear.

If you enjoyed this conversation about healthcare access at the last mile, check out these related podcasts: The Medicine Supply Chain in Africa and The Future of Pharmacy with Remedial Health.

Key Quotes

“Success in business in Africa is staying alive and continuing to go on.” — Joanna Bichsel

“If we put the patient in the center of the solution and collaborate, we can solve these challenges together.” — Jörg-Michael Rupp

“Impact doesn’t come from ignoring the market. It comes from understanding it.” — Rowena Luk

Connect with Africa Health Ventures

Africa Health Ventures invests in healthcare innovations that will dramatically improve access and quality of healthcare in Africa and around the world.

👍 Share your reaction to this podcast on LinkedIn

📰 Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about deals, events, and opportunities relevant to healthcare ventures in Africa

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🪙 Nominate an African startup for seed funding

In 10 years, the medicine supply chain in Africa will look very different than it does today. In Part 2 of this podcast, we examine four key trends which are going to re-shape the medicine supply chain in Africa over the next decade - and shout out to a few of the entrepreneurs that are leading the charge. From regulatory changes spearheaded by the African Union to biomedical innovation requiring new pathways to patient, the medicine market is both growing and changing in Africa.

Our lineup includes:

* Mila Nepomnyashchiy, Lead Advisor, Center for Innovation and Impact, USAID

* Sidharth Rupani, Senior Advisor for Supply Chain, The Global Fund

* Yusuf Rasool, Director of Global Market Access at MSD/Merck

* Clinton De Souza, former Director of Public Health for Imperial Logistics (now DP World), Managing Partner at Celsian Consulting

* Dr. Prashant Yadav, one of the world’s leading scholars on healthcare supply chains. Dr Yadav is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Affiliate Professor at INSEAD and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, etc.).

In case you missed it, don't forget to check out Part 1 of this episode, where we trace the movement of a pack of medicines from a factory in India to the shelves of a mom-and-pop pharmacy in Zambia. 

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Show Notes

Part 2 of The Medicine Supply Chain in Africa covers 3 segments:

1. The Outsized Role of Global Donors

(3m22s) - There’s a world of difference between the private sector medicine markets and the ones supported by billions of dollars of international donor funding. We hear from Mila Nepomnyashchiy of USAID about two different worlds: one for the medicines endorsed by global funding… and one for everything else.

2. Four Trends That Will Dramatically Change The Medicine Supply Chain in the Next 10 Years

(5m45s) - Trend 1: Clinton De Souza, former Director of Public Health for Imperial Logistics (now DP World), on regulatory changes from the African Union that will massively expand the size of the market.

(9m44s) - Trend 2: Yusuf Rasool, Director of Global Market Access at MSD/Merck, on vertically integrated supply chains that will reduce costs and increase access to consumers.

(13m28s) - Trend 3: Dr. Prashant Yadav of the Center for Global Development on omnichannel distribution that will meet patients where they live and work.

(16m46s) - Trend 4: Sidharth Rupani, Senior Advisor for Supply Chain at The Global Fund, on the golden age of biomedical innovation that will challenge our existing ideas of both ‘medicines’ and ‘supply chain’.

3. Social Entrepreneurs Leading the Charge

(20m31s) - Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights a handful of social enterprises that are leading the charge for change.

Learn More

* USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain Program is a US$9.5 billion program with support from PEPFAR. The follow-in contract may be as much as US$17 billion.

* The Global Fund provides extensive support to countries in procuring low-cost, priority medicines. Every year it spends about US$2 billion to procure medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria.

* The Africa Medical Supplies Platform is a pooled procurement mechanism spearheaded by the African Union

* The African Medicines Agency seeks to create a common regulatory environment for medicines across Africa

* The African Continental Free Trade Agreement could create the largest free trade area in the world

* mPharma provides medicines to pharmacies, but does not require payment until those medicines are sold. This helps pharmacies to stock more medicines by de-risking the need for upfront cash.

* Maisha Meds is providing forecasting, sourcing, and other technology support to small retail pharmacies in rural areas.

* Kasha is bringing health products to women and girls at home, giving them the privacy they need while increasing their agency and choice.

* Xetova supports the government in Kenya to use its health supply chain data to create insights on consumption, distribution, procurement spending, supplier and payment performance.

* Pendulum Systems (formerly Macro-Eyes) is providing AI and machine learning tools to African governments to help them optimize their medicine supply chain.

* How Local Innovation Can Drive the Global Development Agenda - This 2023 piece from Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights the importance of new social entrepreneurs in addressing gaps in the private and public medicine supply chain.

* Innovations in Digitizing Health Supply Chains in Africa - This 2023 market intelligence report from Salient Advisory highlights some of the key areas of the medicine supply chain where startups in Africa are most active.

Thank you for tuning in to Africa Health Ventures. This podcast is public so feel free to share it.

What does it take to move a pack of medicines from a factory in India to the shelves of a mom-and-pop pharmacy in Zambia? In this episode, we explore the world of the medicine supply chain in Africa, as told by the people who run it. Along the way, we unpack the market dynamics which limit access to low-cost, essential medicines.

Our lineup includes:

* Yusuf Rasool, Director of Global Market Access at MSD/Merck

* Clinton De Souza, former Director of Public Health for Imperial Logistics (now DP World), Managing Partner at Celsian Consulting

* Michael Moreland, CEO and Founder, Field Intelligence

* Sidharth Rupani, Senior Advisor for Supply Chain, The Global Fund

* Mila Nepomnyashchiy, Lead Advisor, Center for Innovation and Impact, USAID

* Dr. Prashant Yadav, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Affiliate Professor at INSEAD and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, etc.).

Stay tuned for Part 2, when we look at the future trends which are going to dramatically change this supply chain and highlight a few of the new ventures which are leading the way.

Connect with Africa Health Ventures

📰 Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about what’s going on with healthcare ventures in Africa

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🎙️ Subscribe to this podcast

In this episode, we cover

* (2m54) - Setting the stage: we introduce several of the key actors in the medicine supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies. Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights the key role of Ministries of Health as well as the disruptive influence of social entrepreneurs.

* (8m27s) - Yusuf Rasool of MSD/Merck describes the role of large pharmaceutical companies and why it is difficult for a large multinational to operate directly in 54 different African countries.

* (10m57s) - Clinton De Souza digs into two of the structural problems in the medicines market which makes it difficult for distributors to deliver low-cost essential medicines.

* (19m07s) - From the perspective of Five Star Pharmacy in Zambia, we look at the working capital gap which prevents small pharmacies from making the full range of medicines available to people.

* (21m49s) - Michael Moreland of Field Intelligence describes the role of social entrepreneurs and embedded financing in allowing small pharmacies to increase product availability.

* (29m17s) - Recap of the episode so far and teaser for Part 2

Learn More

* Health Product Supply Chains in Developing Countries - This 2015 paper from Dr. Prashant Yadav summarizes the key actors and common challenges of medicine supply chains in Sub-Saharan Africa.

* How Local Innovation Can Drive the Global Development Agenda - This 2023 piece from Dr. Prashant Yadav highlights the importance of new social entrepreneurs in addressing gaps in the private and public medicine supply chain.

* Innovations in Digitizing Health Supply Chains in Africa - This 2023 market intelligence report from Salient Advisory highlights some of the key areas of the medicine supply chain where startups in Africa are most active.

* How MSD/Merck is improving access to healthcare - This page highlights a few of the affordability solutions that MSD/Merck’s Access to Medicines team is working on around the world.

* Imperial Logistics is one of the largest medicine distributors on the African continent.

* Five Star Pharmcies is a chain of retail pharmacies in Zambia founded by Lloyd Matowe with the support of Clinton De Souza.

* Field Intelligence is a social enterprise providing planning, fulfilment, and financing of pharmaceuticals to over 35,000 points of care in Nigeria and Kenya, including government clinics, retail pharmacies and drug shops, hospitals and telehealth providers.

* Was the $9.5B health supply chain 'a waste of USAID's money'? - Earlier this month, Devex published a(nother) searing indictment of USAID’s global health supply chain program. The controversy surrounding this highly centralized, donor-funded program is one of the reasons why now is a good time to take a look at what’s working (and what’s not) in private sector medicine supply chains. In Part 2 of this episode, we’ll touch on a few of the differences and linkages between what we describe in Part 1 and certain donor-driven supply chains.

Thank you for tuning in to Africa Health Ventures. This podcast is public so feel free to share it.

Unlocking access to quality healthcare in Africa by 2030 will require radical innovations. Join veteran digital health / healthtech entrepreneur Rowena Luk in conversation with healthcare industry leaders and innovators every quarter to strategize on what the future of healthcare in Africa will look like. This podcast is for social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and global health professionals who need to stay ahead of the rapidly changing landscape of healthcare in Africa.

Subscribe to our newsletter at AfricaHealthVentures.com/Subscribe

Chuck Slaughter is the founder of Living Goods, which supports over 10,000 digitally-empowered community health workers who are reducing child deaths by over 25% at an annual cost of under $4 per person. As a Senior Advisor to TPG Rise (a $10 billion impact investing platform), Director of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and a successful entrepreneur, Chuck has a rich perspective on how digital is reshaping aid and development work. Tune in today to hear Chuck’s guidance on whether to ‘build or buy’ tech, why nonprofits struggle to deliver the best technology products, and how governments and the private sector need to work together to scale high-impact innovations.

Chuck serves on the boards of Yale’s School of Management, Tidepool, Reach Health, and the Horace W Goldsmith Foundation. He received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, a Draper Richards Kaplan Fellowship, and is a World Economic Forum Social Entrepreneur of the Year. 

• (6m27s) - How Chuck and Living Goods became digital first


• (13m45s) - The DESC metaphor of Living Goods: Digital, Equipped, Supervised and Compensated


• (22m01s) - Working with new technologies: the 'build or buy' debate


• (28m24s) - Why nonprofits struggle to build great tech


• (32m09s) - The digital transformation of aid: grantmaking through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation


• (37m08s) - Financing scale: how governments and the private sector need to work together


• (40m19s) - Rapid fire questions, shoutouts, and recommendations

You can learn more about Living Goods on their website at livinggoods.org. 

Let us know what you thought of this episode on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved). You can also access show notes at AidEvolved.com.

Dr. Agnes Binagwaho is a pediatrician, former Minister of Health of Rwanda, Senior Lecturer at Harvard University, Advisor to the Director-General of the WHO, and co-founder of the University of Global Health Equity. 

She joins us today to talk about the role of technology in the remarkable transformation of Rwanda’s health system post-genocide. 

What are the failed promises of health technology? How has data been a North Star to her work? And what does it take to show the world that Rwanda today stands for truth?

Highlights

• (02m59s) - When health data is held hostage 


• (04m21s) - HIV is a curse that ushered in the era of electronic medical records


• (10m06s) - How epidemiological data supports effective health systems governance


• (16m10s) - Using Twitter to take a stand


• (20m54s) - Whose data do you trust?

Submit a question or comment to our mailbag, and we’ll discuss it on a future show. Emails or voice recordings can be sent to podcast@aidevolved.com 

Connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved) and access show notes at https://AidEvolved.com

Dr. Biju Mohandas has led investments at not just one but three different household names in impact investing: LeapFrog Investments, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Acumen. Tune in today to hear about his take on the upcoming global healthcare crisis, the competitive edge of entrepreneurs in Africa and India, and the catalytic role of impact investors. Hear the investment priorities of a man who's been leading impact investments in healthcare in Africa as long as the term "impact investing" has existed.

Dr. Biju Mohandas is a Partner at LeapFrog and the firm’s Global Co-Leader for Health Investments. Prior to LeapFrog, Dr Mohandas led the IFC’s Healthcare and Education investment team in Sub-Saharan Africa and was the Global Sector Lead for Medical Devices after also serving as head of Acumen in East Africa and as part of their founding team in India.

We’ll cover:

• (2m35s) – The coming global healthcare crisis


• (8m45s) – How Africa and India are poised to leapfrog ahead


• (12m11s) – Investing in asset-light healthcare 


• (15m09s) – Goodlife Pharmacy’s re-emergence after the Westgate Attack in Nairobi


• (18m08s) – How Redcliffe Diagnostics is bringing the lab closer to people in India


• (21m38s) – Pervasive technology, IoT, and wellness


• (23m04s) – HealthifyMe, the largest digital wellness app in India


• (26m13s) – How investors exit from ventures in emerging markets


• (30m10s) – Rapid fire questions

Submit a question to our mailbag and we’ll discuss it on a future show. Emails or voice recordings can be sent to podcast@aidevolved.com 

Connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved) and access Biju’s latest synthesis on the state of healthcare in Africa at https://AidEvolved.com.

John Fairhurst is the head of Private Sector Engagement at the Global Fund. As such, he is the link between this global institution and innovators ranging from Microsoft to Zenysis. Tune in today to understand how the largest financier of HIV, TB, and malaria programs works with Big Tech, emerging startups, and other innovators to achieve its global goals.

In its 20 years of existence, the Global Fund has channeled $55 billion to support the fight against HIV, TB, and malaria.

Prior to joining the Global Fund John was an Executive Director at UBS Optimus Foundation and COO at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). He helped establish the portfolio of one of the largest private foundations in international development, the Children's Investment Fund (CIFF). He oversaw development and humanitarian programs for Oxfam in various geographies including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, and Afghanistan.

A few highlights:

• (2m13s) - Introducing John Fairhurst


• (6m06s) - How the Global Fund works with Big Tech


• (16m19s) - How the Global Fund works with emerging technologies and startups


• (21m38s) - The partnerships that don't work out


• (26m56s) - Guidance for other donors in "the valley of death"


• (31m41s) - Rapid fire questions

Submit a question or comment to our mailbag, and we’ll discuss it on a future show. Emails or voice recordings can be sent to podcast@aidevolved.com 

Connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved) and access show notes at https://AidEvolved.com

When you dig into the problem of providing quality healthcare in Africa, sooner or later you hit the foundational question, “who is going to pay for these services?” In tackling this challenge, PharmAccess Foundation has provided health financing to almost 5M people in Kenya alone. A key part of this success is developing a digitally-enabled, financially sustainable approach that generates revenue from middle-income clients to sustainably serve low-income communities. We chat today with Nicole Spieker, CEO of PharmAccess Foundation, about the public-private partnerships necessary to make healthcare affordable to everyone. 

Conversation highlights: 

• (2m19s) - Introducing PharmAccess Foundation


• (3m01s) - How PharmAccess is innovating in healthcare financing


• (6m43s) - What makes M-TIBA different from other health insurance programs?


• (9m55s) - The digital leapfrog opportunity in health insurance in Africa


• (12m20s) - How public funds catalyze private investment


• (14m45s) - Harnessing the value of data for the people who own it

Submit a question or comment to our mailbag, and we’ll discuss it on a future show. Emails or voice recordings can be sent to podcast@aidevolved.com 

Connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved) and access show notes at https://AidEvolved.com

GHIF was a "first-of-its-kind investment product", the fund was created in 2012 through the surprising alliance of the Gates Foundation and JP Morgan Chase. Its supporters include a stellar cast of characters such as Grand Challenges Canada, AXA Investment Managers, the development finance institution of both Germany and the World Bank, GSK, Merck, and Pfizer. Its mission is two-fold: generating attractive financial returns to its investors, and improving lives for millions in low- and middle-income populations. This is accomplished by providing late-stage financing for innovative drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, and working with companies to introduce the products globally. The new AXA IM Global Health Fund is expanding the model with a larger fund and wider mandate that includes both communicable and non-communicable conditions. 

In this episode, we'll touch on:

• The kinds of global health innovations Curt financed through GHIF


• Curt's guidance for innovators seeking growth capital


• Lessons learned for emerging fund managers


• Curt's call to action for the global health community to ensure life-saving products are effectively delivered to communities as far as the last mile

This conversation was recorded live at the IFC Global Private Health Conference 2023 in Cape Town, February 2023. IFC is a development finance institution and the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.

Access show notes at https://AidEvolved.com and connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved).

Submit your questions or comments for a future episode to podcast@aidevolved.com.

Margot Cooijmans is an impact investor, philanthropist, entrepreneur, corporate lawyer, and expert on essential Corporate Social Responsibility. For most of their existence, she has led Philips Foundation and Philips Foundation Impact Investments B.V. Tune in today to learn about Margot's career directing the contributions of global corporations to better serve the public good.

Note: this interview is about the personal experiences and perspectives of Margot Cooijmans. Nothing said in this interview should be construed as the position of Philips or any of its subsidiaries, affiliates, or partners.

• (4m32s) – Margot establishes Good Company and dives into the world of corporate social responsibility (CSR)


• (11m28s) - Margot joins forces with the global technology company, Philips, to define the strategy during the startup years of Philips Foundation


• (21m38s) - Margot spearheads the creation of Philips Foundation Impact Investments Ltd, drawing expertise from Philips Ventures, the corporate investment arm, but with the goal of improving access to healthcare beyond where Philip can typically reach


• (30m30s) - Rapid fire questions with Margot Cooijmans 

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Subscribe for updates or let us know what you think of this episode on LinkedIn or Twitter (@AidEvolved).

Only half of the women diagnosed with breast cancer in Africa today survive. Why? This episode uncovers how women are dismissed or diagnosed too late—and follows the clinicians and innovators determined to do better. This is a story of fear and misinformation; but this is also a story of resilience and the changemakers refusing to accept the status quo.

In today’s episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Carol Benn, an industry-leading surgeon and advocate setting the standard for breast cancer care in South Africa; Dr. Kathryn Malherbe, the founder of Medsol AI using AI to detect breast cancer earlier; Thom Renwick, Head of Roche South Africa; and Maturin Tchoumi, Head of Roche, Africa.

In This Episode

* (3m33s) Dr. Carol Benn is challenging the old guard of breast cancer care. A trauma surgeon turned breast cancer pioneer, Dr. Benn recounts how she pushed back against outdated medical norms in South Africa — empowering women to stand up for their own bodies.

* (8m23s) Fear holds us back. Why do so many women delay screening? From mistrust of healthcare systems to myths about age and pain, Dr. Benn explains how fear — not ignorance — often stands between women and early detection.

* (10m38s) 65% of people with breast cancer have no symptoms. Many women diagnosed do everything “right.” Dr. Benn dismantles how the demographics of breast cancer are changing.

* (11m24s) Thom Renwick of Roche South Africa unpacks the hidden economic toll of breast cancer. Beyond the human tragedy, late-stage breast cancer is draining African economies — with billions lost in productivity and families destabilized when women in their prime are forced out of the workforce.

* (13m59s) Maturin Tchoumi, Head of Roche in Africa, believes technology is a force multiplier. From mobile banking to mobile health, Maturin argues that digital innovation can unlock massive efficiency gains in healthcare.

* (15m25s) Dr. Kathryn Malherbe of Medsol AI became frustrated after seeing too many young women arrive too late for treatment. A mammographer turned entrepreneur, she built an AI-powered ultrasound tool that’s over 90% accurate and dramatically more affordable — bringing screening closer to the communities that need it most

* (23m58s) “You have to believe in what you’re doing.” Facing regulatory hurdles, funding gaps, and institutional resistance, Dr. Malherbe reflects on the conviction required to build in African healthcare — and why unwavering belief is sometimes a founder’s greatest asset.

Show Notes

* Medsol AI, founded by Dr. Kathryn Malherbe, is building AI-powered ultrasound diagnostics to expand breast cancer screening at the primary care level. Early studies show the solution is over 90% accurate and dramatically more affordable.

* The Socioeconomic Burden of HER2+ Breast Cancer in Africa: A report by the WifOR Institute examining seven African countries estimated $10.3 billion in productivity losses over five years due to late diagnosis and under-treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer.

* The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is an excellent recounting of the modern history of cancer, including breast cancer. Among other topics, it lays bare the devastating effects of radical mastectomy on breast cancer patients, and how rapidly science and technology to tackle cancers have evolved in the past few decades.

* The Africa Breast Cancer Council is a pan-African coalition chaired by Dr. Carol Benn, working to improve breast cancer awareness, policy alignment, and standards of care across the continent.

* Netcare Milpark Breast Care Centre of Excellence is one of only three breast care centres outside the United States accredited under the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC), setting a global benchmark for multidisciplinary breast care.

* Africa Tech Festival – Healthcare Track: This episode was recorded live at Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, where a dedicated healthcare innovation track highlighted the intersection of digital transformation and public health.

Connect with Africa Health Ventures

Africa Health Ventures invests in healthcare innovations that will dramatically improve access and quality of healthcare in Africa and around the world.

👍 Share your reaction to this podcast on LinkedIn

📰 Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about deals, events, and opportunities relevant to healthcare ventures in Africa

🎙️ Subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts

🪙 Nominate an African startup for seed funding

As the Senior Vice President of Impact at the Global Innovation Fund, Joseph Ssentongo works at the challenging nexus of innovation, evidence and impact. He sits down with Aid, Evolved today to share his efforts to generate evidence even from early-stage innovations; how to measure impact even when that impact might not mature until 10 years in the future; and how Big Aid can evolve to be more innovative by adopting the right model of risk.

The Global Innovation Fund (GIF) is a non-profit, impact-first investment fund which has invested over 100M USD in innovations with the potential to improve the lives of those living on less than 5 dollars a day. It is backed by grant capital from UK, Canadian, Swedish, US and Australian governments as well as corporate and philanthropic donors. This interview reflects the personal experiences and views of Joseph Ssentongo and does not represent the position of GIF or any of its partners.

Conversation Highlights

• (4m35s) - Joseph recalls his work with the Investment Climate Facility for Africa working with government to improve private sector investment across 14 countries


• (13m08s) - What is the Global Innovation Fund (GIF)?


• (18m19s) - How does GIF remain accountable not just to its major donors but also to the people and communities it claims to serve?


• (20m33s) - Joseph unpacks the tricky balance between delivering world-class evidence and also investing in novel innovations which may not yet have a strong track record of evidence


• (23m04s) - Joseph shares his personal experience and the unique contribution of GIF to the waste pickers of Mr. Green Africa, a new kind of recycling company in Kenya


• (26m49s) - How GIF strives to be a catalyst that can lead the way for other donors to invest in risky innovations


• (30m20s) - What's next for GIF? Joseph describes the launch of GIF's Innovating for Climate Resilience Fund as well as the Innovating for Gender Equality sub-fund


• (31m22s) - Joseph tackles our Rapid Fire questions, from people who inspired him to his favourite podcasts

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on LinkedIn or on Twitter (@AidEvolved)

A note from our sponsor: this episode is brought to you by idealist.org. Are you looking to hire dedicated and talented professionals? Idealist is the #1 job board for the social impact sector. Sign up to start posting jobs today! Go to idealist.org/aid to get a credit for one free 30-day job listing.

Pippa Yeats first built Turn.io to send reminders to mothers in South Africa about how to stay healthy. She never dreamt that she would be one of the first responders creating a lifeline to information in a country at war - after government websites and other channels were taken down by cyberattacks. In today's interview we retrace the event surrounding February 24th 2022, when Russia first invaded Ukraine. This triggered a group of Turn.io software developers to band together with the State Emergency Services of Ukraine and Meta (formerly Facebook) to launch the Ukrainian crisis response hotline - in just three days.

A note from our sponsor: this episode is brought to you by idealist.org. Are you looking to hire dedicated and talented professionals? Idealist is the #1 job board for the social impact sector. Sign up to start posting jobs today! Go to idealist.org/aid to get a credit for one free 30-day job listing.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

In 2022, Segal Family Foundation was the second largest US grant-maker in Sub-Saharan Africa by number of grants given (below Gates and above Ford Foundation). We speak with long-time Executive Director, Andy Bryant, about the radical changes he introduced to address the challenges of traditional philanthropy, and how he made it work in practice. One common theme emerges across Andy's work: a deep commitment to localization and to empowering African visionaries to drive African solutions.

Conversation Highlights

• 13m56s Hiring and talent


• 15m06s Finding great opportunities


• 19m30s Monitoring and evaluation


• 22m35s Getting and acting on feedback


• 27m29s Unrestricted funding


• 31m07s Challenges


• 45m22s Rapid fire questions

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

A note from our sponsor: this episode is brought to you by idealist.org. Are you looking to hire dedicated and talented professionals? Idealist is the #1 job board for the social impact sector. Sign up to start posting jobs today! Go to idealist.org/aid to get a credit for one free 30-day job listing.

On March 8, 2020, Dr. Tedros asked Andy Pattison to set up the World Health Organization (WHO)’s global COVID-19 hotline, a process that would normally take months if not years. 12 days later, Andy and his team launched the largest WhatsApp service in the world. Tune in today to hear from Andy himself how it all went down.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Hannah's done it all, from managing a billion-dollar fund to sowing the seeds for new ventures in Africa. She has invested directly in the companies who built the cell phone towers that are expanding connectivity in Africa and she's bootstrapping the entrepreneurs that will change how healthcare is delivered in the years to come. This conversation will help you understand the role that private financing can play in Africa's future. It's also a snapshot of the Congo, as told by one of its stars, a complex country which is both one of the poorest and the richest in the world.

Hannah Subayi Kamuanga is Country Director for the Democratic Republic of the Congo of PROPARCO, France's development finance institution. She is a member of the investment committee for Launch Africa Ventures, the most active seed investor in tech in Africa today. On top of all of that, she's an active angel investor and co-founder of Dazzle Angels, the first Angel club to invest exclusively in women-led tech startups in South Africa.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Join us in conversation with Rebecca Distler, Strategist for AI, Data, and Digital Health at the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. She shares the trials and tribulations of a decade spent funding and fund-raising for innovations in global health - and how she's working to change the game, from supporting the Gates Grand Challenges initiatives through her work at the Foundation to advance digital health equity. In this far-ranging conversation, we touch on ethical AI, private venture capital vs. public funds, and even the New York City Ballet.

Rebecca's prior work includes advising on digital ID for COVID-19 vaccination and testing, leading a $3M+ portfolio of AI and digital ID for health projects, and supporting the launch of government partnerships to fund and advance early stage technology and R&D in global health. Rebecca holds a Masters in Health Policy and Global Health from the Yale School of Public Health and a BA in Political Science from Yale University. She is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, and was selected as a Forbes Ignite Impact Fellow, AI XPRIZE Semi-Finalist, and Gavi INFUSE Pacesetter.

The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation is a 21st century philanthropy committed to bridging the frontiers of artificial intelligence, data science, and social impact.

Note: This interview is about the personal experiences and perspectives of Rebecca Distler. Nothing said in this interview should be construed as the position of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or any of their affiliates.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Is there a donor or investor you’d like to hear on this show? Let us know on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Today’s episode was brought to you by idealist.org. Sign up to start posting jobs today on the number one job board for the social impact sector. Go to idealist.org/aid to get a credit for one free 30-day job listing.

Season 3 of Aid, Evolved digs into the intimidating world of donors and investors in global digital health / healthtech. What's it like to walk a mile in their shoes? How are their actions and decisions influenced, be it by Congress or a Board of Directors, by tax authorities, by personalities, or public relations? We’ll peer inside the day-to-day lives of public and private funders, including big aid, foundations, development finance institutions, and private investors. 

To find out more, visit our website at https://AidEvolved.com 

Want to hear from a specific donor or investor? Let us know on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Lukonga Lindunda is a startup ecosystem builder. He is Executive Director and co-founder of BongoHive, an award-winning innovation hub and tech incubator based in Lusaka, Zambia, that is changing the landscape of entrepreneurship in the region.

Lukonga is a Mandela Washington Fellow and has 15 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and development partners. He began his career providing technical assistance in aid sector programmes with Education Development Center (EDC) and VVOB. In 2011, he founded BongoHive with three colleagues after noting a gap in the support young entrepreneurs needed to bring their innovative business ideas to life. Since then, Lukonga has steered BongoHive to nearly 1300 Startups and MSMEs harnessing over $2 million in resources to support their growth since 2016. BongoHive have been featured on global and regional media outlets such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, TechCrunch, and many others.

In today's conversation, Lukonga recalls the founding story of BongoHive. He looks back on the early approaches he took to generate revenue and pay the bills, as well as the different sectors and services BongoHive has offered over the years. 

The story of Lukonga and BongoHive is also the story of how the tech sector in Zambia has evolved over the past ten years. It is a case study that illustrates many of the challenges of building the tech sector in low-income countries in Africa: the essential pieces of missing infrastructure, the limited options for funding and talent, and above all the unfaltering grit of its founders.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Dr. Robert Karanja recalls how he founded Villgro Africa, a tech incubator and impact investor focused exclusively on health innovations in Africa. Stick around for the end when Robert shares his predictions for the future of genomics on the continent and his hopes for a new kind of pharmaceutical company for Africa.

Robert began his career with the dream of eradicating malaria. To this end, he completed a PhD in medical parasitology and spent almost a decade at Kenya's premier medical research institute, KEMRI. But over the years, he realized the problem with malaria wasn't scientific - it was financial. It was inextricably linked to the poverty and inequity of the communities most affected.

So Robert started to grapple with the question: "how do I use cutting-edge science not just to tackle biology, but also to create opportunity? How can we generate wealth and launch viable health ventures that will fix the gaps in coverage?" This question would lead him first to launch a bioentrepreneurship program at one of Kenya's leading universities, and then to join forces with Villgro, one of the world's first impact incubators. In 2015, Robert co-founded Villgro Africa, a franchise offshoot of the global Villgro model focused exclusively on health innovations in Africa. Robert shares how he launched Villgro Africa, and how he needed to adjust the traditional incubator approach to match the economics of Africa.

Towards the end of this conversation, Robert hints at the next great venture he is turning his attention towards. He sees a massive untapped opportunity for the pharmaceutical sector in the genomic wealth of Africa paired with modern mRNA technology. He argues that clinical trials and precision health studies could be delivered here in Africa. These would deliver pharmaceutical products competitively to the global market and also provide more appropriate health solutions locally. He points at the gap that exists in the global pharma industry, and how Africans will rise to fill this gap. Of course, Robert is paving the way, with the launch of an innovation hub that will bridge the gap between biotech researchers and a new kind of pharma company for Africa.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Like another airborne disease we are all familiar with, tuberculosis (TB) spreads invisibly through the air. If you catch it and you don't treat it, you're likely to die. India has the largest TB burden in the world, with millions of cases diagnosed and over 500,000 deaths every year. Consistent, continuous treatment and management of care is essential to a healthy recovery. This is why the work of Everwell Hub is so critical. Everwell Hub is a comprehensive digital solution for the management of tuberculosis. 1 in 5 newly diagnosed TB patients in the world are managed through the Everwell Hub - making it the most widely adopted solution of its kind in the world. 

Andrew co-founded Everwell and has been CEO for most of its existence. He sits down with Aid, Evolved to share what the journey to scale has been like, from the hallowed halls of Microsoft Research to the messy realities of public clinics. At Microsoft Research, he was able to work with cutting-edge tech and world-class researchers. In this environment, Andrew experimented with solutions in computer vision, augmented packaging, and cellular technology.

Then, in 2014, one of his innovations started to stretch beyond the domain of a research lab. 99DOTS, a tool for medication adherence, was seeing significant interest and uptake both by donors and government. Andrew and his small team knew that a research lab would not be the place to scale this technology. So, they set off on their own. This was how Everwell was born.

Everwell's journey to scale arose from a unique confluence of factors: it was built on a foundation in research and evidence. Andrew's spin-off from Microsoft was catalyzed by early buy-in from the government. And, serendipitously, Everwell's birth coincided with a change in health policy around TB treatment which created new demand for Everwell's solutions. 

But the journey to scale is riddled with challenges. Compared to the research environment, Everwell needed to adapt to support populations at scale which revealed new and different obstacles than at a more limited scale. As one example, their initial approach using incoming calls was blocked by the telecom operators (telcos) because the system enabled patients to call for free, so they had to innovate further to accommodate millions of toll-free calls coming into their system. In today's conversation, Andrew shares the many ways in which Everwell has needed to adapt and change in order to support the holistic, end-to-end needs of TB caregivers in India and around the world. 

One key learning from his experiences: if you’re scaling innovation, you either need to find environments with the right infrastructure to accept that innovation OR you need to build an organization that is able to develop the infrastructure needed to support your innovation.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

From a university in South Africa to the shelves of Walgreens in the United States, the South African tech company HearX has risen to be a global industry leader in hearing health and announced a $100M capital raise earlier this year. In this episode, Rowena Luk sits down with CEO Nic Klopper and CSO Seline van der Wat to unpack how HearX (now LXE Hearing) is shaking up a 100-year-old industry to lower costs and improve access to care around the world. Tune in for a story of grit, timing, and bold bets that paid off.

In This Episode

* (2m48s) How HearX evolved from a research project at the University of Pretoria to a high-growth startup

* (4m34s) Crisis of faith: can we do more than just send children into a broken healthcare system?

* (8m13s) Landing the partnership with Bose, the global industry leader in consumer audio

* (11m20s) Breakthrough: expanding our reach from South Africa to the world

* (16m08s) “We went up against the industry giants, larger bank accounts, big law firms… and we won.”

* (19m32s) The year we almost didn’t make it

* (22m47s) Rapid-fire questions and advice for founders

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Show Notes

* Nic Klopper is CEO at LXE Hearing (previously HearX & Lexie Hearing). His experience ranges from being an avid start-up investor to founding 7 successful businesses and exiting 3 of them to date. As the co-founder and CEO of HearX Group and Lexie Hearing, Nic has been the driving force behind a transformative shift in the hearing health industry. He has guided the company from early-stage healthtech startup to a multimillion-dollar enterprise with products now available in 38 countries.

* Seline van der Wat is the Chief Strategy Officer at LXE Hearing (previously hearX & Lexie Hearing). Under her leadership, the company was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s Most Influential Companies in the World list in 2023, for hearX’s groundbreaking work in hearing health accessibility. Seline has transformed companies into first-to-market and best-in-market giants through her strategic and organizational development expertise.

* Vula Mobile, founded by Dr. William Mapham, was an early collaborator with HearX. In 2018 with support from the Google Impact Challenge, Vula Mobile and HearX partnered to screen children in Gauteng for vision and hearing. This led to the epiphany at HearX that they needed to do more than just screen for hearing loss; they needed to play a direct role in increasing access to hearing aids.

* Seline’s shoutout goes to Ilara Health and its CEO Emilian Poppa for Ilara’s work to improve financing and access to diagnostics at scale for clinics across Kenya.

* Seline’s second shoutout goes to Jonathan Berkowitz at MotionsAds, which provides additional income to drivers in the gig economy (like Uber Eats) through advertising.

In the heart of Nigeria's COVID-19 surge in 2020, Samuel Okwuada started receiving a string of phone calls from local pharmacies who were struggling to get stock during lockdown. They needed Samuel to deliver more essential medicines, in smaller quantities, to more locations, at the same or lower costs. This is an impossible equation for any traditional drug distributor to balance - but when it became clear they had no other choice, Samuel knew it was time to create something new.

This is how Samuel Okwuada pivoted his prior venture, a brick-and-mortar wholesale distributor, into a HealthTech startup that is setting new standards for delivery quality meds, reliably and efficiently, to pharmacists across Nigeria. Today's conversation is a case study on how small pharmacies in Nigeria have historically acquired their stock and how this approach is being disrupted with new technologies.

While improving health product distribution has a massive potential for impact, it is also a market rife with challenges, politics, and delays. Samuel recalls how, in order to receive regulatory approval for medicines distribution, he needed immense patience and resourcefulness. Patience, to wait the 2 years needed for government licensing, and resourcefulness, because in order to get licensed, he needed to finance an operational warehouse for 2 years with no revenue. Here we see the speed of technological innovation juxtaposed against the pace of brick-and-mortar operations. But Samuel knows there is a better future ahead and is paving the way for that future: one in which Nigerians can rely with confidence on their local pharmacies to provide high-quality meds when and where they are needed.

Remedial Health is connected to more than 100 pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers, including GSK, Pfizer and Astrazeneca, as well as Nigeria’s Orange Drugs, Emzor and Fidson Healthcare. Earlier this year, it was one of the African startups that took part in the prestigious Y Combinator programme, the most successful accelerator program in the world. It also banked US$1 million in pre-seed funding to power its growth.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Mara Hansen Staples is on a mission to tear down the glass ceiling that stands between African innovators and global funding. She spent years talking to funders behind closed doors in Geneva, D.C., New York, and London. Throughout these conversations, she was always struck by the question: if our goal is to serve African markets, why aren’t there any Africans in these discussions? Today she has spearheaded the launch of Investing in Innovation (i3), a game-changing program to revisit and rethink how the public and private sector come together to support locally led innovation in Africa.

In this conversation, we trace Mara’s journey from riding motorbikes to deliver vaccines in rural Morocco to the halls of Harvard and the boardrooms of the Gates Foundation. We hear what it’s like to sit in the donor’s seat: both the power and the limitations of that role. And through it all, as we weave through Mara’s professional and personal negotiations with the healthcare system, we learn about the transformative power of technology and the essential need for effective health supply chains.

Mara is the Founder and CEO of Salient Advisory. Launched in 2020, Salient's work on health tech in Africa has been featured on CNN, CNBC, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Quartz, Devex, Stanford Social Innovation Review, by the Center for Global Development, the Brookings Institution and many more. Previously, Mara co-founded Impact for Health, and worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she led >$100M portfolio to improve coverage of primary health care through health financing and engagement of the private sector. Mara holds a MSc in Global Health & Population from Harvard, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco and serves as a member of the advisory board for Nivi, Inc.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Alain Nteff is the CEO and Founder of Healthlane. Healthlane delivers precision personal health plans through a network of world-class laboratories in Africa.

Alain's work has been lauded by Bill Gates and honoured by the Queen of England, the President of Rwanda and Rebecca Enonchung. Yet his approach to digital health has undergone dramatic changes over the past ten years.

He started off with GiftedMom, a service providing safe pregnancy messages to pregnant women. GiftedMom reached over half a million women in countries across Africa. But after the hype faded, Alain saw again and again heartbreaking instances of women who traveled long distances to health facilities for a safe delivery, only to receive substandard care when they arrived. 

So, Alain decided to expand the work of GiftedMom to ensure quality care of women in delivery. GiftedMom introduced 'fast-track lanes' within hospitals in order to provide appropriate urgency and quality of care to women in delivery. This was how Healthlane was born.

2020 was a fateful year. Alain was admitted to YCombinator, the most successful startup accelerator in the world. This was the final push Alain needed to tackle preventative health by the horns.

Healthlane today provides premium health quality assessments. It gives people access to a world-class set of comprehensive diagnostics that provide deep insights into the most important machines of our lives: our bodies. And it's available in major cities across Africa like Lagos, Abidjan, Douala, and Nairobi. 

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Mike Quinn was co-founder and CEO of one Africa's earliest major financial technology (FinTech) companies, Zoona. He raised over 35 million dollars of international investment for this Zambian startup - before its heartbreaking crash and Mike's exit from the company.

In the conversation today, Mike shares how this Canadian engineer first came to Africa as a volunteer with Engineers Without Borders. Through early connections and personal initiative, he then found himself leading a Zambian mobile money company. In just a few years, Mike grew Zoona to a company that served millions of unbanked consumers in Zambia and Malawi. But that all changed when their Series C round of financing fell through at the last minute.

This is a classic David vs. Goliath story. Mike and his co-founders were a group of young, ambitious techies who wanted to make life easier for millions of Zambians. To do this, this small company needed to go head-to-head with billion-dollar international phone companies.

The craziest part? They almost won.

All of this and more is covered in Mike's book, Failing to Win, available worldwide through Amazon.

You can also access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com or connect with us on Twitter @AidEvolved.

Femi Kuti is the CEO and co-Founder of Reliance Health - an HMO using tech to make quality healthcare delightful, affordable, and accessible in emerging markets. Earlier this year they raised $40M through their Series B financing. This makes it the largest raise of its kind in the history of African health tech.

Despite this success, Femi is a humble down-to-earth man. He opened up with us on the podcast last month about growing up in Ondo City, Nigeria, the child of a physician and a teacher. Even though he trained as a physician and was working as an investment banker on Wall Street, he couldn't resist the allure of Lagos, the emerging Silicon Valley of Nigeria. So he set off on his own to start a digital health venture building telemedicine technology.

The remarkable moment in this story is a fateful conversation Femi had with a partner during his time at YCombinator, the most successful startup accelerator in the world. The partner asked Femi whether digital health alone could achieve the mission Femi had set out to achieve. If not, what would it take? The answer: a LOT. It would take an integrated healthcare system, an insurance program, financing, licensing, a fleet of modern clinics, and a host of third-party clinical partners. But if you never try, you'll never succeed. So Femi pivoted Reliance Health from a pure technology player to a complete HMO solution and integrated healthcare provider.

If you're a founder, idealist, dreamer, or changemaker, listen to this episode to remind yourself of the importance of fulfilling your own mission - and the power of big goals even when those goals feel impossibly hard.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Yetunde Ayo-Oyalowo founded Market Doctors based on the idea of bringing healthcare to people where they live and work. Market Doctors is a social enterprise that deploys doctors and other health workers outside of health institutions and in the public markets of Nigeria. Here they provide healthcare without disrupting the economic activities of communities living on the margins. Market Doctors is challenging assumptions about what healthcare is and where it can be found.

The idea was born when Yetunde was volunteering for her church to raise health awareness in the community. Trained as a doctor, she was able to counsel, diagnose, and treat people in public spaces outside of the traditional hospital setting. A born entrepreneur, she saw an opportunity in the markets where people are already congregating and looking for health advice - and where traditional medical institutions seemed too expensive, too distant, and too inaccessible. So, she pulled up a chair and got to work.

Yetunde is a doctor, an entrepreneur, a Nigerian, a woman, and a mother. When the international nonprofit community wasn't initially receptive to her idea, she went a different route. She turned to faith-based organizations and corporate partners for support. She forged partnerships with banks, pharmaceuticals, and other large corporations to leverage their funds to serve community needs. Today Market Doctors employs 50 people serving 9 states in Nigeria.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Chrispinus Onyancha is the Founder and CEO of clinicPesa. clinicPesa is a FinTech company that provides affordable healthcare financing to the uninsured in Africa through mobile money.

This is the story of Eng. Onyancha Chrispinus the Founder and CEO of clinicPesa. It's the story of how he was able to rise, first to the top of his class and then to secure a prestigious MIT fellowship. Finally Chrispinus struck out on his own to create an internationally-funded digital health business, clinicPesa.

Today clinicPesa serves over 1,870 Hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies across Uganda. It provides a variety of products focused on health savings and loans. In less than 4 months, they were able to reach 250,000 Ugandans, and they are now looking to grow to 1.4 million customers by close of year. These products are built on mobile money and other cellular technology to make the act of savings and payments friction-less for people and providers alike - with or without an internet connection. Where gaps exist, clinicPesa also provides short-term medical loans. This year, they are expanding their offerings to include new product lines in the pharmacy supply chain.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Today, April 26 2022, Farmerline announced that it has raise $6.4 million in Pre-Series A investment and an additional $6.5 million in debt. Farmerline is an AgriTech business known as "the Amazon for farmers in Africa." We recently sat down with Alloysius Attah, founder and CEO of Farmerline, to hear the remarkable story of Farmerline.  

Starting from his humble beginnings growing up in a farming community in Ghana, Alloysius met his co-founder Emmanuel Addai in a dorm room at university. Together they rode the early hype around SMS messaging to deliver market prices to farmers - and quickly realized that farmers in Ghana need much more than just text messages. For the decade to follow, Alloysius has tirelessly pursued the elusive mission of creating real value for smallholder farmers. In the first iteration, they brought information and insights directly to farmers through voice messages. In the second iteration, they empowered agricultural extension workers to streamline trainings; provide quality seed and fertilizer; and even offer financing.

Then, in 2020, Farmerline made a pivotal strategic shift. In a key moment of crisis created by the COVID-19 epidemic, 2020 was truly a "make it or break it" year. Through an extraordinary push from Alloysius and his team, Farmerline catapulted from its roots in Ghana towards the global stage. Today it provides the technology platform used by organizations in 26 countries to streamline the agricultural value chain, serving over a million farmers in Africa.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Nthenya Mule is one of the founders of Antara Health, a technology company reimagining primary care to serve Kenyans both at home and in the clinic.

Born and raised in Kenya, Nthenya recounts first-hand the many ways in which the healthcare system failed her family. Hoping to make a difference, she shares how she explored new healthcare offerings in microinsurance, development financing, and private equity. Yet through a chance turn of events she met her co-founder Kebba Jobarteh and decided to try something radically different. Starting from the seed of an idea, Nthenya shares the tactics she used to develop the first win-win partnerships necessary for Antara to scale.

With the growing demand for healthcare that can be delivered remotely, Antara provides the end-to-end platform needed to deliver a new kind of healthcare. This includes the technology to connect all the actors; a virtual care team; and a model that seamlessly connects with traditional health financing and care providers. 

This conversation is for anyone who sees how much healthcare demands have changed since 2020 and the opportunity this presents to better serve the bottom of the pyramid.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Ben Bellows spent almost 20 years studying the economics of aid systems - but 2 years ago Ben quit his day job to go all-in on Nivi. Nivi is a chatbot marketplace Ben founded to empower, inform, and engage communities directly. Today we chat with Ben to understand what inspired someone with 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts and a lifetime in the nonprofit sector to take a bet on a healthtech startup.

Ben grapples with the hopes and failures of designing a better kind of aid, one that rewards outcomes rather than inefficiencies. He talks about the unique moment in history when broadband arrived at his home in Kenya and you could feel the energy and optimism that kickstarted the Silicon Savannah. Embracing this moment, Ben clicked with one of his two co-founders within an hour of their encounter at Java House in Nairobi. All of this brings him today to Nivi, a social enterprise providing a chatbot-based marketplace allowing over 2 million people to achieve their own health goals in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, and India.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Today we tackle head-on the myths and misconceptions of investing in Africa. We invite two of the leading venture capitalists in Africa to field tough questions from a room full of experienced international investors. Our guests are Bongani Sithole, CEO of 54 Collective and the most active investor in Africa, and Lelemba Phiri, Founding Partner of ATG Samata, a leading African gender lens investor.

This conversation was recorded live in November of 2024 at a Toniic gathering in Cape Town, South Africa. Toniic is a global community of individual, family office, and foundation asset owners seeking deeper impact with their investments and their lives.

In This Episode

* (2m46s) What is the Africa opportunity?

* (8m19s) Myth: “Africa is a single market.” What does it mean to invest across 54 countries?

* (13m28s) Myth: “There are no exits in Africa.” How do investors make a profit from putting capital into African businesses?

* (18m57s) Myth: “Political instability makes it impossible to invest in Africa.” What trade agreements, regulatory environment, and political context enable private investments to succeed in Africa?

* (22m15s) Myth: “There is a shortage of talent in Africa.” Where can investors find world-class founders?

* (28m43s) How can you get started investing in Africa?

* (30m12s) Recap

Connect with Africa Health Ventures

Africa Health Ventures invests in healthcare innovations that will dramatically improve access and quality of healthcare in Africa and around the world.

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Show Notes

About Bongani Sithole and 54 Collective

As Chief Executive Officer of 54 Collective, Bongani Sithole is a tech-entrepreneur who over the last 18 years has built 3 technology businesses from the ground up. Before joining 54 Collective, Bongani’s last company — Black Beard — built tech businesses on behalf of corporates. As CEO, Bongani leads the early-stage investor as it seeks to invest in, collaborate, and support founders to go beyond borders and make a discernible impact through commercially-orientated innovations that can sustainably improve the lives of the continent’s people. 54 Collective is Africa’s most active, hands-on, early stage venture capital investor.

About Lelemba Phiri and ATG Samata

Lelemba is a Co-founder and Partner at ATG Samata, a gender-lens venture capital firm that is focused on investing in women-led businesses and gender diverse teams in key markets in Southern, East and West Africa. She is a seasoned development finance expert with 18+ years of experience working in both public and private sector, across 10 markets+. This includes having been a key part of scaling a Fintech start-up from one market to five before moving from entrepreneurship into venture capital. She is an expert in gender-lens investing, innovative finance, and entrepreneurship development with a key focus on advancing women.

About Christophe de Montille and Beyond Capital Ventures

Christophe de Montille is a Principal at Beyond Capital Ventures, a multi-asset firm investing in Seed to Series A companies across India and Africa in need-to-have sectors such as financial services, healthcare and climate. Prior to joining Beyond Capital, Christophe worked for a decade as a management consultant leading large tech transformations for corporate and federal clients. In addition to his work at Beyond Capital, Christophe led transaction advisory work for over 30 deals in the Global South and mobilizing over $54M in capital.

About Toniic

Toniic is a global community of private asset owners seeking to steward wealth and use influence to enable a thriving world. Its members — individuals, family offices and foundations from more than 25 countries — are active impact investors and philanthropists, for whom Toniic provides education, investment opportunities, impact support, events, and community. Toniic also seeks to build the field of deep impact investing, moving money and mindsets and leading by example.

Ikpeme Neto is the CEO and Founder of WellaHealth in Nigeria. He's carried this healthtech startup through a major pivot from pharmacy automation to low-cost, tech-enabled health financing. In today's conversation, Ikpeme shares the many entrepreneurial experiments he ran in his early career - before he decided to scrap his entire team and start afresh. He recalls the moment when he decided to risk it all by giving up a comfortable life in New Zealand to come home to Nigeria and make a bet on a new startup. Finally he shares what he learned, and how he learned it, about the market for healthcare in Nigeria, and the role technology can play to bring healthcare financing to the next billion.

WellaHealth is an early-stage tech startup that lowers the barriers to access affordable micro-insurance health products. In 2021, WellaHealth successfully raised a seed round of investment, supported 1,500 pharmacies, served over 40,000 people, and grew revenue by 10X compared to the previous year.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

In November of 2020, I sat down with Yaw Anokwa, founder and CEO of ODK, to talk about the unsustainability of open-source software in global development. Despite building a data collection platform that was used by countless organizations in every country in the world, Yaw's team struggled to find the financial resources necessary to keep ODK going.

Today, ODK is celebrating a huge milestone: in a single year, Yaw has transformed the organization, rebuilt their revenue model, and achieved financial sustainability. We catch up with Yaw to talk about the many different business models ODK tried which failed to take off...and the one that finally made it.

ODK helps social impact organizations build powerful offline forms to collect the data they need wherever it is. It    is used for everything from COVID-19 contact tracing in Somalia, to monitoring parliamentary elections in Albania, to managing school attendance across Honduras.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

When it comes to health, there are few people who are tasked with answering the Big Questions: what's actually working? Where is the evidence? And how do we get it to scale? Today we talk with Tigest Tamrat, a technical officer at the World Health Organization (WHO), whose job it is to find answers to incredibly hard, ambiguous questions. She's co-authored some of the most essential reading in digital health - including the WHO's Recommendations on Digital Interventions for Health Systems Strengthening, as well as the mHealth Assessment and Planning for Scale Toolkit (MAPS).

Tigest gives us a window into the stakeholders, the tensions, and the worries that go on behind the scenes, when you're working on health policy at a global scale. In the second half of the episode, we learn how Tigest stumbled into her work with WHO. Lastly, she shares her hopes for Ethiopia, the country where she was born, and how social enterprises can help Ethiopians lift themselves up.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Today I pull together some of the conversations in 2021 that really made my head spin.

I clicked ‘record’ on the first episode of Aid, Evolved just over a year ago. My goal was to tell the stories of people working at the intersection of technology, poverty, and health. I've poked and prodded 28 people from many different walks of the aid sector: funders, innovators, non-profit founders, health systems leaders, government administrators - you name it. We've grappled with the situation of healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries across Africa and Asia. Together we've shared our hopes and struggles in applying technology to make such systems work a bit better.

As we wrap up 2021, let me share with you some of the things I've learned about the aid industry. Who are the actors, and what are the strengths and limitations of each actor? One question in particular I grapple with: every aid organization and donor emphasizes the importance of working with and investing in the people in the communities we serve. But why is it so hard to get investment as a local organization in Africa or Asia - and why is it so hard to give it?

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Jon Jackson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Dimagi, a social enterprise that delivers digital solutions to improve lives in over 130 countries. In today's conversation, we chat with Jon about the influences, the people, and the ideas that took him from being an MIT grad on Wall Street to the trenches building health systems in Zambia. As we reflect on Dimagi's founding story, we also hear Jon's conscious decision to be an idealist and an activist - in spite of the existential doubts that plague him to this day. We hear how the mismatch between frontline aid workers and donors played out for Jon as he built and launched a touchscreen Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system in Zambia. From these formative experiences, Jon developed his philosophy towards high-impact technology. Then he baked that philosophy into the fabric of Dimagi.

This is also the story of how to shape a business to match one person's philosophy of impact, particularly in the complex and often broken dynamics of the aid industry. How do you build an ecosystem for impact, one that can rise above the success or failure of any individual project or product? How do you build a company that can have a lot of failures, but ultimately when it succeeds, its success is inextricably linked to the success of those we serve?

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Mike Quinn was co-founder and CEO of one Africa's earliest major financial technology (FinTech) companies, Zoona. He raised over 35 million dollars of international investment for this Zambian startup - before its heartbreaking crash and Mike's exit from the company.

In the conversation today, Mike shares how this Canadian engineer found himself leading a Zambian mobile money company. He opens the door to the power and pressures of international financing, and the toll it takes on African entrepreneurs. In just a few years, Mike grew Zoona to a company that served millions of unbanked consumers in Zambia and Malawi. But that all changed when their Series C round of financing fell through at the last minute.

This is a classic David vs. Goliath story. Mike and his co-founders were a group of young, ambitious techies who wanted to make life easier for millions of Zambians. To do this, this small company needed to go head-to-head with billion-dollar international phone companies.

The craziest part? They almost won.

All of this and more is covered in Mike's recently published tell-all book, Failing to Win, available around the world through Amazon (available in audio, paperback and kindle format) or in South Africa at Takealot and Exclusive Books.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

What would you do if you had millions of dollars to invest in impact? Would you put it in an existing charity - or would you try to do something different, something better?

Kevin Starr needed to answer these questions when, in 1993, he unexpectedly found himself at the head of a new foundation named Mulago. Instead of taking the path well traveled, Kevin decided to experiment with creating impact that lasts. And so, through the twists and turns of many years, he developed the Mulago Foundation fellows program and investment approach.

In today’s conversation, Kevin shares how he found his way in the early years of Mulago. He talks about the challenges of early investments and how those lessons are applied to his current approach. Over time, he shares how the Foundation really started to gel once he was able to build common ground with his investors and his awardees. Kevin dives into some of the fallacies and idiosyncrasies of the aid sector, and how he’s established a more efficient way of working. Mulago runs lean because it builds on talent and trust - and skips the bureaucracy. Finally, Kevin presents his “playbook for scale”, the six systemic accelerators he sees again and again in his most successful investments.

In addition to leading Mulago, Kevin is one of the primary instigators of Big Bang Philanthropy, a group of funders that work together to direct more money to those best at fighting poverty.

Mulago Foundation was an early funder of Digital Green, Nexleaf Analytics, Medic, One Acre Fund, Living Goods, Last Mile Health, VillageReach, and Mothers2Mothers.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Sathy Rajasekharan is the co-Executive Director of Jacaranda Health. Frustrated with the speed of change within larger institutions, Sathy joined Jacaranda to be part of a small, agile, and experimental team. His mission was to lead the charge on local innovation. He joined at a pivotal time, when Jacaranda Health was transforming beyond its origins as a private healthcare provider to create a digital health non-profit. At the helm of Jacaranda's operations in Africa today, Sathy is committed to Jacaranda's work to generate rapid, grounded innovation. This means he needs to make tough choices on what experiments to keep, and what to cut. Even today he's constantly asking the question of how to incubate new ideas, through what team and what structure. As he seeks to expand their influence across Kenya, he also comes head to head with the practical and policy gaps of scale. For example: Jacaranda strives to adopt the highest standards of data protection, but what happens when this approach collides with common practice in Kenya?

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Marie Ahmed has worked within USAID to strengthen health systems in Nepal, Rwanda, Côte d'Ivoire, and Thailand. She has a long career in the non-profit and public sector, including time with the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan and over a decade with USAID, the largest contributor of foreign aid in the world.

In this conversation, we recall what inspired Marie to work in the aid sector; her surprise placement in Uzbekistan; and the hard financial realities that constraint who can work in aid. We also peek behind the scenes to understand what it's like being someone with the responsibility of directing US Foreign Assistance overseas. In her role, Marie is constantly balancing her accountability to the American taxpayer with the unique needs of different countries which have hosted her. She needs to act according to the deadlines and the policies of the American Congress, while deeply understanding the needs of vulnerable communities that she is trying to serve elsewhere. Marie provides an honest and human perspective on what it's like navigating the aid industry. She tackles head-on some of the common pet peeves people have with aid, opening our eyes to the realities and responsibilities that come with managing public funds.

This interview is an eye-opener to the financial and political mechanisms which anyone working in the modern aid industry needs to work with.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Evelyn Castle is a woman who just doesn't know when to stop. She has founded multiple social ventures in the technology and health space in Africa. She is best known for her work as Executive Director and Co-Founder of eHealth Africa, a leading digital health implementer for Nigeria that was founded and run from Kano, Nigeria - and now has a growing footprint elsewhere in Africa. She also founded EHA Clinics, a private set of clinics providing quality healthcare in Nigeria, and EHA Impact Ventures, an impact investing firm targeting female-owned startups in Africa.

In our conversation today, we talk about Evelyn's fateful decision to drop out of college in California so she could pursue her dream in Nigeria. She shares the explosive growth that eHealth Africa experienced - growing by 10X in a single year! - and the kind of pressures that put on the organization to expand and to deliver. She shares how she built a chain of private sector clinics, driven by the need to provide quality care to her growing staff. And finally we hear Evelyn's vision for her new impact investing work, and how it will power the next generation of tech founders to do even better.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

InstaDeep was the largest acquisition on the African continent last year, sold for half a billion euro to the pharmaceutical company BioNTech. We speak today with Karim Beguir, InstaDeep’s Founder and CEO.

This is a healthcare success story at a time when the vast majority of investments in Africa are in fintech. It's also a deeptech victory at a time when most of the world is skeptical about whether deeptech can even be built, let alone scaled, in Africa.

So how did a math geek from Tunisia bootstrap a company that captured the hearts and minds of a continent? Tune in to find out.

Connect with Africa Health Ventures

📰 Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed about deals, events, and opportunities about healthcare ventures in Africa

🎙️ Subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts

👍 Follow us on LinkedIn

🪙 Nominate an African startup for seed funding

🤝🏻 Invest with us

In This Episode

* (3m16s) Start with passion. Passion will carry you through the years when you don’t know whether it’s going to work out or not. Passion will draw others to back you and keep on backing you, even when times are tough.

* (6m18s) Engineering exits is a delicate balancing act between short and long-term goals.

* (7m19s) How to navigate the hard balance between short-term profitability and long-term ambition? It took InstaDeep 5 years to build DeepPCB, which is now the best in the world in its product class.

* (9m08s) Deliver 10X value in your partnerships. This will harden the relationships that lead to clients, to investors, and to exits.

* (10m47s) How do we build investable talent in Africa? The journey to unlock African talent begins with the founder. Make yourself a world-class expert; pursue your vision with passion; and create the environment to grow and attract industry-leading talent.

* (15m04s) AI, biotech, and the future: we are today with Biology AI where LLMs were in 2020. The golden age of biology AI and biotech is just beginning. African founders have an unparalleled opportunity to build the data assets of the future.

* (18m15s) Do not limit yourself. Many African founders suffer from a failure of ambition. Think global from day one.

Show Notes

* InstaDeep: The Early Days: this article from Rest of World covers some of the early ventures and misadventures of Karim Beguir

* Born in Tatouine: from a remote city in Tunisia, how Karim rose to the global stage

* Google’s 2014 acquisition of DeepMind was an early inspiration to Karim in founding InstaDeep

* BioNTech announced its acquisition of InstaDeep in 2023

* Nucleotide Transformer is InstaDeep’s industry-leading genomics Language Models. In 2023 they released these models open-source to HuggingFace

Erica Layer is the CEO of D-Tree International, a global digital health organization dedicated to ensuring everyone has access to quality primary healthcare through integration of digital tools into community health systems. In this conversation, Erica shares how she found her way into the field of digital health, for reasons that had nothing to do with technology. She recounts how she was scared, inspired, and guided by Dr. Marc Mitchell, the founder of D-Tree who passed away two years ago. Finally, we trace Erica's journey stepping into the role of CEO, and how she's had to carve out her own style of leadership. Erica never imagined she would take on this role... but when the time came, everyone else in the room knew she was the right woman for the job.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

After more than 15 years in Ghana Health Services, Dominic Atweam has seen all the major digital health systems in Ghana come and go. But one system withstands the test of time: DHIS2 (or "DHIMS2" as it is branded in Ghana). 

Dominic was a key actor in the decision by Ghana Health Services (GHS) to adopt DHIS2. In this walk through history, Dominic retells how he first learned about the system, how he launched it on a shoestring budget, and the reason why it continues to be used so widely in Ghana today. 

Dominic was a Health Information Systems Expert for over a decade within the Division of Policy, Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PPME), the Directorate of GHS charged with oversight on digital health deployments in Ghana. He recently joined the World Health Organization (WHO) to continue promoting effective health information systems use at all levels of the Ministry of Health.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

After rising to the top of the global consulting industry, Rahul Mullick joined the Gates Foundation to oversee some of their most ambitious work in digital and technology. Today we look back on what Rahul learned and how his investment strategy evolved in the 7 years he spent with the Gates Foundation. 

We discuss Rahul's ground-breaking work to tackle tuberculosis (TB) in India, the country with the highest TB burden in the world. This resulted in the development of the largest TB platform in India providing continuity of care to patients across public and private hospitals. Rahul also played a major role in the fight against malnutrition in India, which houses a third of the world's malnourished children. His investments supported hundreds of thousands of India's community-based nutrition workers with smartphones and an application to guide and improve service delivery. Rahul shares the pressure, challenges, and opportunity that come with scaling to one of the largest health worker programs in the world. Reflecting on what he's learned, he shares how his investment strategy has evolved over the years, from investing in specific technology products towards building a digital innovation ecosystem for India.

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)

Marlene Mhangami is a remarkable woman. She was the first African woman to join the board of the global Python Software Foundation (PSF). PSF develops and maintains the Python programming language, one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Marlene was also chair of the first ever pan-African PyCon (Python Conference). She co-founded ZimboPy, a non-profit that empowers young women in Zimbabwe to pursue careers in technology.

In this conversation, Marlene and I discuss what it was like joining the board of PSF, particularly as a young African woman. She reflects on the resources she had, and the ones she didn't, when she taught herself how to code. On many occasions, Marlene has needed to act against traditional views of what a Zimbabwean woman should do. In equal part, she's needed to resist misguided donors with antiquated ideas of how to teach technology. Today Marlene sits at a crossroads, with open source and non-profit work down one path and the private sector technology industry down another. Which path will she choose - or will she find a way to bring these two worlds together?

To find out more, access the show notes at https://AidEvolved.com 

Let us know what you think of this episode on Twitter (@AidEvolved) or by email (hello@AidEvolved.com)