WHO Digital Health Technical Advisory Group Members - Biographies

AGRAWAL, ANURAG

Dr Anurag Agrawal is Director of the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology. After undergraduate medical studies at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Delhi (1994), he trained in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA (2003), followed by a PhD in Physiology from Delhi University. After serving as an Assistant Professor at Baylor, He joined IGIB in 2007, taking over as Director in 2017. His interests are in smart deployment of emerging technologies towards healthcare and he is co-chair of the Lancet and Financial Times global commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing up in a digital world.

He received the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize in Medical Sciences in 2014, the highest such award in India, and was elected to fellowships of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences in 2018. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance for Clinical and Public Health research.

ALHUWAIL, DARI

Dr Dari Alhuwail is an Assistant Professor at the Information Science Department in the College of Life Sciences, Kuwait University. He also is the co-founder of the Kuwait Health Informatics Network and a member of the Kuwait Health Informatics Association.

He currently serves as a Health Informatics Consultant at Dasman Diabetes Institute and an Adjunct Faculty member at the College of Medicine at the University of Dundee, supervising graduate students in health informatics.

Dr. Alhuwail obtained his Ph.D. in Information Systems with a specializing in Health Informatics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and an MSc from the University of Arizona. He has over 12 years working in industry and in various labs around the world.

ARAGONA, JOVITA

Ms. Jovita Aragona graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and finished her Masters in Information System from the University of the Philippines Open University. She has over 27 years of experience in the field of information technology, and is at present the Senior Vice President - Chief Information Officer of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation. She is a COBIT5 Foundation certified and TOGAF9 certified, and received the 2019 Civil Service Commission Presidential Lingkod Bayan Regional Winner, 2018 International Data Corporation Digital Transformation Leader of the Year, and President and CEO’s Award of Excellence. Her office received awards/recognition for her initiative and undertaking in data-driven transformation and machine learning.

Her contributions to the Philippines eHealth Strategic Framework and Plan, and Health Enterprise Architecture of the Department of Health have provided sound strategies on the adoption of eHealth in the country, as well as its roadmap to system integration and interoperability

AUER, CLEMENS MARTIN

Dr Clemens Martin Auer, in his position as Director General at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs, is responsible for health systems and coordination, amongst others with the European Union. He started his political career in the early 1990s as a Head of the political department of the Austrian conservative party. Having joined the Ministry of Health in 2004 as the Cabinet chief, he later switched to civil service. Clemens Martin’s academic background is philosophy and political science; he holds a doctor’s degree.

Clemens Martin Auer was elected EHFG President in the board elections on 14 June 2017.

CHANDIR, SUBHASH

Subhash Chandir is an epidemiologist at IRD Global. He received his medical degree from Pakistan and his Masters in Public Health (Infectious Diseases) and a doctorate in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control (with a certificate in Vaccines Science & Policy) from Johns Hopkins University.

For over 16 years, Subhash has conducted or participated in various studies and projects in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, Ecuador, USA, and UAE. Subhash’s work is focused on Maternal & Child Health research and service delivery. Subhash’s research and teaching efforts are directed towards infectious disease epidemiology, vaccine-preventable diseases, economic incentives, digital health, artificial intelligence, and operational research.

Subhash also serves on the faculty at the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

DIAKABANA, HUGUETTE

Huguette is an experienced system-level change agent with a demonstrated history of working with international organizations and governments. She is passionate about fostering collaboration and expanding access to valuable and impactful knowledge to help achieve meaningful progress, in sub-Saharan Africa. Her experiences to date have involved developing and implementing context-appropriate technology-based solutions in education, mining, environment, agriculture, and in recent years in digital health in over 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.  

Huguette also mentors students and young professionals who are interested in collaboration and in leveraging appropriate, sustainable, and cost-effective technologies to make a difference in their communities.

She currently lives in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and frequently travels to countries in Central and West Africa to facilitate Digital Health policy and strategy development sessions, and conduct workshops on available technologies and data-driven decision-making.

She is fluent in English, French, Lingala and proficient in six other languages. She received a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree focused on International Economics and International Business from Suffolk University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

HUNGU, JACKSON

Jackson is a Kenya national and leads the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s (CHAI’s) digital health work. Since 2005 he has been working with governments to scale up programs for HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and vaccines, while strengthening the underlying health systems and introducing new health technologies.  He has built collaborations with governments, the technology industry, and local universities to construct sustainable, national-scale informatics solutions.

Additionally, he directs programs on access to diagnostics and treatment and serves as the CHAI deputy country director in Kenya.  Prior to CHAI, he worked in the private sector including with Industrial Promotion Services an Aga Khan Development Network company.

JOSHI, INDRA

Dr Indra Joshi is the Head of Digital Health and AI for NHSx,  overseeing the digital health initiatives within the NHS with a focus on data, digital health standards, evidence and AI policy.

Indra has a unique portfolio with experience stretching across policy, governance, digital health and marketing, national project strategy and implementation; whilst remaining true to her professional training as an emergency medic.  

She is the Clinical Director of One HealthTech – a network which campaigns for the need  and importance of better inclusion of all backgrounds, skillsets and disciplines in health technology. Alongside she is a Vice Chair for the British Computer Society (Health), an international speaker and consultant on digital health, an expedition medic, and most importantly a mum to two wonderful little munchkins.

KAEVATS, MARTEN

Marten Kaevats, is the National Digital Advisor in the Government Office of Estonia or unofficially the Chief Innovation Officer of Estonia. He, being responsible for information society and innovation in Estonia, is working on upgrading the interoperability system architecture of his country. The goal of all his work is to build adaptable and future-proof governance architecture, while acknowledging well that predicting that future in its complexity is impossible. Estonia, being a prime example of distributed governance architecture based on human-scale values where every end user is in control of their data, is perfect in testing out new forms of governance suitable for the 21st century.

He legalised the testing of self-driving vehicles on all public roads in Estonia in 2017 and is the initiator of the Estonian AI policy. He has a master's degree in architecture and city-planning from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Marten joined the Estonian governmental talent programme in 2015. He studies the impact of various scalable technologies on the socio-spatial behaviour of individual people and communities and describes his discipline as governance architecture. Before joining the government, he was the chief of Tallinn Architectural Biennale 2015 "Self Driven City" curatorial team. Marten is also an active member of several civil society organisations; he was also one of the founding members of the Uue Maailma Selts (New World Society) in 2007 which triggered reformatory changes in participatory democracy and a revolution in civil society, also he founded and contributed to the creation of open source community web platform Community Tools, established in 2008.

KIJSANAYOTIN, BOONCHAI

Dr. Boonchai is an informatician and a physician from Thailand. He had worked in a rural public general hospital for 15 years as an internal medicine clinician before receiving Master and PhD in Health Informatics from University of Minnesota, USA. His working areas and research interest are national health information standards and interoperability, health information exchanges, national eHealth strategy and health IT adoption. He is the senior research manager of the Thai Health Information Standards Development Center (THIS), Health System Research Institute (HSRI), Ministry of Public Health and biomedical and health informatics lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University Thailand.

LOPEZ OSORNIO, ALEJANDRO   

NG, ALEXANDER

Alex’s personal mission is to support the under-privileged, the under-served and make this world a more equitable place.

He is currently leading Tencent’s healthcare business and is redefining Tencent’s long term strategic direction. Tencent has developed multiple products such as the wechat embedded apps like “Tencent Healthcare”, AIMIS (AI enabled clinical decision support system for radiological images), Oncology Assistant (AI triaging system to better match cancer patients to oncologists). In addition to developing more tools, the focus is also on how best to apply these tools in the clinical settings and how we can better tap in to the potential of AI to improve access and quality of healthcare.

Alex first started his career as a medical doctor where he was the chief resident at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland before completing his MPH at Harvard. Instead of returning to New Zealand, he joined McKinsey & Company and later became an associate partner advising governments and healthcare companies on their strategy and operations. After 9 years at McKinsey between US and China, he joined Gates Foundation as the deputy director of the China Country Office, responsible for the health and innovation portfolio.

Although he no longer practices clinical medicine, he continues to engage with students through teaching a master level course “strategies in healthcare” at the University of Hong Kong as an honorary associate professor.

ROGERS, DEBORAH

Debbie Rogers’ advanced degrees in Electronic and Software Engineering as well as Art allow her to bring both technological problem-solving skills and creative insights to her work. Although her career in mobile technology began in the commercial sector, Debbie shifted to technology for development 10 years ago when she joined Praekelt.org. In 2014 Debbie led the service design of the National Department of Health in South Africa’s MomConnect programme and has since developed a particular focus in advancing mobile technology for health.

Now the Managing Director, at Praekelt.org, Debbie is proud to lead a diverse team in creating guided, personal, empowering conversations that improve health outcomes and systems. Her passion for diversity in the technology sector has also led her to co-found the African Developers Academy, a software training programme for previously disadvantaged women in South Africa.

ROTH, SUSANN

Susann works on ADB’s knowledge and innovation program. The program aims to support ADB’s teams across the bank to enhance innovation in ADB project design and implementation. Susann supports business development in public and private sector, cross-sector project design and projects which apply new technologies. She leads ADB’s Futures and Foresight program and she has designed ADB’s first innovation price challenge. Before this role, Susann co-led the preparation of ADB’s new Operational Plan for Health, which aims at doubling ADB’s health sector operations by 2020. She also managed several ADB trust funds, which piloted innovative approaches in malaria and communicable diseases interventions. Susann launched the first ADB health bond, developed a digital health flagship program and championed health impact assessment across sectors. She joined ADB in 2009 as Social Development Specialist in Central and West Asia, where she worked on social development issues across all sectors.

Susann, a German national, holds a Medical Doctor degree and a PhD in medical science from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and a Master of Public Health and Policy from the University of the Philippines.  She is board certified in emergency medicine, attended a fellowship program in dermatology and tropical medicine in the Philippines, and joined post-graduate courses in adult education and didactics. She has worked in public and private sector before joining ADB. She is trained in Futures Strategic Thinking and Foresight techniques.

SHARMA, KRITI

Kriti Sharma is an Artificial Intelligence technologist and a leading global voice on AI ethics and its impact on society. In addition to advising global businesses on AI, she focuses on AI for Social Good. She built her first robot at the age of 15 in India and has been building AI technologies to solve global issues ever since, from productivity to education to domestic violence. Kriti was recently named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for advancements in AI and was included in the Recode 100 list of key influencers in technology in 2017. She was invited as a Civic Leader by the Obama Foundation Summit for her work in ethical technology. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Google Grace Hopper Scholar and recently gave expert testimony on AI Policy to the UK Parliament in the House of Lords.   

Kriti was appointed a United Nations Young Leader at the General Assembly in 2018 and is an adviser to the UN Technology Innovation Labs.

SHIBUYA, KENJI

Professor Kenji Shibuya is currently Professor and Director, University Institute for Population Health at King’s College London. His expertise ranges across important topics in health metrics and evaluation; global burden of disease and risk factor analysis; health financing and cost-effectiveness; health system performance; health financing with an emphasis on universal health coverage; and product and system innovations; public-private partnerships; and R&D strategies. His global policy vision, with an emphasis on local ownership, performance, partnership and innovation has become the core of the new global health strategy of the Japanese government. 

Dr. Shibuya has been an advisor to both central and local governments, and most recently he was appointed as Special Advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization on health metrics and data. He spearheaded the future strategic directions of the Japanese global health policy agenda after the Hokkaido Toyako G8 Summit in 2008. He led the Lancet Series on Japan, published in 2011 in an effort to jump-start debates on Japanese domestic and global health policy reform. In 2015, he chaired the landmark Advisory Panel on Health Care 2035 for the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare.  

He obtained his MD at the University of Tokyo in 1991 and earned a doctorate of public health in international health economics at Harvard University in 1999.

WHITTAKER, ROBYN

Dr Robyn Whittaker is a public health physician and Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is currently Clinical Director of Innovation at the Waitemata District Health Board where she leads the organisation’s Leapfrog Programme implementing enterprise-wide health IT solutions (recently winning the national CIO Awards for Business transformation through digital and IT). She also co-leads the health technology team at the National Institute for Health Innovation where she is a world leading mHealth researcher – her research includes mHealth development and evaluation, particularly for healthy behaviour change and self-management support for people with longterm conditions.

Robyn sits on regional and national groups including as chair of the Northern Region Health Systems Design Council, IS Strategic Plan Design Authority, National Telehealth Leadership Group, Clinical & Technical Advisory Group for Health Informatics New Zealand, Sector Advisory Group for the national Health Information Platform, Digital Investment Board for the NZ Ministry of Health, Management Team for the MedTech Centre of Research Excellence, and Theme Lead for the award winning Precision Driven Health research partnership. She was the New Zealand Harkness Fellow in HealthCare Policy and Practice 2010/11 in the U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services, leading to many international networks and research collaborations. She has been a long term expert for the WHO/ITU ‘Be Healthy, Be Mobile’ global mHealth initiative, writing their first toolkits.

WILSON, PETRA

Petra Wilson is co-founder and managing director of Health Connect Partners, a boutique consultancy established in 2016 which focusses primarily on helping clients understand the European health policy environment. In addition, Petra is engaged as EU Programme Director for the Personal Connected Health Alliance (a HIMSS innovation company), and also acts as a senior advisor on health and life sciences at FTI Consulting.

Petra’s past professional roles include eight years in the European Commission from 1996-2003, where she focused particularly on the use of information society technologies in healthcare; 2003-20 as director at  the European Health Management Association, focusing on healthcare provider institutions and from 2006-2013 as Senior Director of Connected Health at Cisco, where Petra’s team supported clients in making best use of new communications technologies to drive safer and more efficient access to healthcare. Petra also has deep experience of the health services sector, having worked on both the patient and provider side as CEO of the International Diabetes Federation from 2013-2016.

Petra holds a Doctorate in Public Health Law from Oxford University, she has British and Belgian nationality, has lived in Brussels for over 20 years and works in English, German and French.

WOLF III, HAROLD

Harold “Hal” Wolf III is the president and CEO of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a mission-driven non-profit global advisor and thought leader supporting the transformation of health through information and technology. With a membership of 79,000 around the world, HIMSS serves the global health information and technology communities with focused operations across North America, Europe, United Kingdom, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. 

Wolf is respected internationally as a healthcare and informatics leader, with areas of expertise in mhealth, product development, integrated care models, marketing, distribution, information technology and large-scale innovation implementation.

Before joining HIMSS, Wolf served at The Chartis Group as Director; Practice Leader of Information and Digital Health Strategy. Prior to The Chartis Group, he served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Kaiser Permanente’s, The Permanente Federation, representing more than 16,000 physicians. Wolf also held executive positions at MTV Networks, Time Warner, and served as a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Co.

XU, YANWU

Dr Yanwu Xu is the Principle Architect of Baidu Health. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology & Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He received the B.Eng. and PhD degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China, in 2004 and 2009, respectively. He worked as a postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, from 2009 to 2011, a Research Scientist at Institute for Infocomm Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, from 2011 to 2017, and the head of Biomedical Research Department at Central Research Institute, CVTE, from 2017 to 2018. Dr Xu has more than 100 publications in international conferences and journals. According to Google Scholar statistics, his papers have been cited more than 1600 times, and his H-index is 21. His current research interests include ocular imaging, medical image analysis, computer vision, and machine learning.

He is an IEEE Senior Member since 2015, Executive Member of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) and Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS), Singapore Chapter, since 2014. He is an Associate Editor of BMC Medical Imaging since 2015. Moreover, he served as an area chair of International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) from 2017 to 2019, a co-chair of MICCAI Workshop on Ophthalmic Medical Image Analysis (OMIA) since 2014, and the founder of iChallenge competition platform for ophthalmic image analysis.