The Global Digital Health Forum (GDHF) isn’t just a conference; it’s a community. Each year, technologists, health workers, policymakers, and innovators gather with one goal: to shape a more human, equitable digital future.

In 2025, the community came together with renewed clarity and urgency, united by a shared understanding that digital health stands at a decisive inflection point. The active participation of Ministry of Health (MoH) representatives from 28 countries reflected not only growing global alignment but also an unprecedented level of governmental commitment to advancing digital health agendas. 

The rooms were full, the conversations were candid, and the sense of purpose was unmistakable. This is no longer a field debating transformation; it is one committed to delivering it.

“It was inspiring to see the global digital health community convene in Nairobi to reflect on the future of digital health and beyond. GDHF 2025 showed that transformation begins where ambition meets action. What we witnessed here wasn’t just progress on paper but grounded, people-centered change led by those who know that digital health must serve communities first. The clarity and urgency in these conversations remind us that when leadership aligns, and frontline workers are empowered, we’re not only strengthening systems—we’re shaping a future where health truly works for everyone.” Carol Kamasaka, outgoing Co-Chair of the Global Digital Health Network (GDHN).

Across three days, the Forum’s discussions formed a coherent story about what it truly takes to build digital health systems that serve people, withstand political complexity, and scale sustainably.

Digital Transformation Is Human Before It Is Technical

The Forum opened with reflections on Kenya’s digital health journey. This was an honest account of what national transformation looks like in practice. The story resonated widely because it revealed what many practitioners confront daily. Digital transformation unfolds in the tension between design and real-world use, between national ambition and local capacity, between competing priorities and negotiated trade-offs.

Parliamentary engagement, public participation, devolved governance, and social media pressure shape the pace and direction of change as much as any technology.

The message that set the tone for the Forum was clear – stakeholder engagement isn’t a procedural step. It is the backbone of sustainable transformation.

Leadership Determines How Fast Countries Move

This understanding of complexity paved the way for sharper conversations on governance.

Across Africa and elsewhere, digital health and AI policies are advancing quickly, but the Forum underscored that policy volume does not equate to progress. Without aligned leadership and clear decision-making authority, overlapping mandates and fragmented strategies stall momentum.

Speakers like Dr. Karthik Adapa, Regional Advisor at the World Health Organization (WHO), emphasized a shift toward outcome-based evaluation of AI, while others highlighted the need for country-driven public–private partnerships that serve national priorities rather than external agendas.

The takeaway was measured, but firm, and experts unequivocally echoed that effective governance depends less on strategy documents and more on political clarity and leadership coherence.

AI’s Value Emerges in the Hands of Health Workers

With the depth of collective experience at the conference, it was only fitting to place frontline realities at the centre.

Gates Foundation, Penda Health, Johnson & Johnson, Dalberg, D-Tree, AMREF, and several national ministries illustrated how AI is beginning to support, not replace, the people who keep health systems functioning. Whether through automated data quality checks, simplified supervision tools, or insights that translate complexity into actionable guidance, the value of AI came through not in abstraction but in application.

These discussions also addressed ethical concerns head-on – protecting data, preventing bias, and avoiding additional burdens on an already stretched workforce. What emerged was a practical principle that resonated across participants that AI succeeds only when it lightens the load on health workers and earns their trust.

Community Health as the System’s Stabilizing Force

Throughout GDHF 2025, community health kept resurfacing as the stabilizing force behind resilient systems. Examples from one of the 42 Kenyan counties, Machakos County’s eCHIS implementation and Living Goods’ work reinforced what many practitioners already recognize — community health workers are the foundation on which primary care rests.

What is changing is the visibility of their contribution. Digital tools are making real-time supervision, referral tracking, and county-level response more feasible than ever. In doing so, they make the case for sustained investment in community health not as a program-level decision, but as a system-strengthening imperative.

Data Governance: Trust Built Through Accountability

Trust remained a recurring thread through the Forum.

mDoc and others demonstrated approaches where communities help define access rules and responsibilities, ensuring systems are not only compliant but comprehensible to those they affect.

Several leaders emphasized that governance frameworks must be matched by enforcement and long-term resourcing. Without consistent accountability, even well-designed systems risk eroding trust over time. The consensus was pragmatic: data privacy must be implemented with as much seriousness as it is written.

World Diabetes Foundation contributed to this conversation by focusing on the integration of digital NCD solutions into primary health care, emphasizing that without coherent governance and shared infrastructure, progress on NCD outcomes risks being undermined by fragmentation.

Interoperability Moves From Theory to Implementation

The momentum around interoperability was notably different this year. Previously treated as a technical aspiration, it emerged as a practical requirement for scaling national systems.

Speakers, including Dr. Kanyenje Gakombe, Chief Executive Officer, Metropolitan Hospital, and Chair, Kenya Healthcare Federation, argued that connected systems are essential to improving visibility, reducing inefficiency, and supporting oversight.

What stood out in 2025 was the evidence that countries are embracing open standards, shared infrastructure, and open-source frameworks not as idealistic choices but as foundational building blocks for national digital ecosystems. Interoperability is no longer preparatory work, but it is implementation.

Google, Endless, HELINA, the WHO, and PharmAccess’s Full-STAC sessions reinforced this shift, making the case for open standards, shared architectures, and community-driven ecosystems as the foundation for interoperable, sustainable digital health systems capable of responsibly integrating AI. This vision was reinforced by PharmAccess, which, alongside Kenyan implementers, showed how these principles are translating into connected, trusted care in practice.

Small Wins as Catalysts for National Momentum

Despite the broad range of topics, a recurring theme cut through the discussions. Experts from across geographies shared the thought that meaningful progress often starts with one well-executed initiative. The shift to digital yellow cards — a milestone that countries can achieve within a year using existing tools — became an example of how targeted wins can build confidence and political will.

This pragmatic approach was echoed in discussions led by MSD for Mothers, which shared lessons from multi-country coalitions using digital tools and data to improve the quality of maternal care, highlighting how focused, well-executed interventions can scale and endure across very different health system contexts.

It reflected a broader mindset at GDHF 2025 that transformation doesn’t demand perfect conditions. It demands commitment to achievable steps that prove what is possible.

Countries Are Advancing: Unevenly but Unmistakably

Country experiences showcased a landscape moving forward in different ways and at different speeds:

• Ethiopia integrating DHIS2 more deeply into its national architecture
• Nepal advancing EMR harmonization
• Kenya expanding connected community health units across counties

This sense of forward motion was echoed in World Bank-led discussions on scaling digital public infrastructure for health, where country and regional experiences illustrated how implementable blueprints are helping translate national digital health strategies into operational reality.

Taken together, these stories showed progress is incremental, sometimes uneven, but undeniably accelerating, driven by both political intent and stronger alignment between partners.

A Common Direction for a Shared Future

As the Forum looked towards the future, alignment emerged as a shared priority.

The Transform Health Roadmap to 2030 resonated as a tool for bringing coherence to fragmented efforts, providing countries and partners with a way to identify gaps, strengthen governance, and maintain a people-centered approach to digital health.

“This year showed what’s possible when we move in step across sectors, across regions, and around shared principles. As we look to next year, our challenge is to turn this alignment into sustained action by translating vision into governance, partnerships, and results that strengthen health systems for everyone.” Sam Wambugu, PATH, incoming chair of the Global Digital Health Network (GDHN).

A Field Moving Forward Because Its Community Is

By the close of GDHF 2025, the overarching narrative was clear – digital health has matured into a collective endeavor shaped by governance, financing, community systems, AI innovation, data protection, and frontline realities. What binds these elements together is not technology but the global community committed to using it responsibly and effectively.

This year’s Forum showed a field moving forward with pragmatism, ambition, and shared purpose.

And if one insight captured the spirit of GDHF 2025, it was this – we are not simply digitizing health systems, we are shaping the future of global health together.

Watch our recorded sessions here.

According to InterAction’s polling of CEOs from various International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) 50% were actively working on implementing a new business model for their organization. And that figure is from 2023– before the 2025 funding cuts and policy shifts trapped INGOs everywhere in an existential struggle for a sustainable future. 

But how do social impact leaders evaluate and implement new business models? Many are so focused on the day-to-day programming of their organizations that it’s difficult to plan for the future, let alone chart one along a different path. There are plenty of consulting groups that offer help with this conundrum, but their services are often cost-prohibitive for INGOs, particularly smaller organizations. 

If only there were a free, high-quality learning program to help leaders move beyond proposal writing and grant dependency to a slate of effective products and services aligned with market needs, and effective sales and business development strategies to maximize their reach…. 

Well, you’re in luck.

The Endless Foundation and TechChange are partnering to launch a new cohort-based accelerator program on building new business models for the new era: Pivot for Impact. 

We’re recruiting social impact leaders now for the Inclusive Phase, comprising six weekly live sessions and self-paced learning modules from January 21 to February 28, 2026. 

The Inclusive Phase will cover core concepts in business model innovation and introduce a host of expert changemakers who have successfully utilized these approaches in a dynamiclive case study format. We’re talking real-life, actionable insights and tools–not dry textbook materials or outdated ideologies that don’t fit a social impact context. 

Here’s a glimpse into the topics for the six weeks of interactive instruction:

The Inclusive Phase will end with a reflection point: Do you want to sustain and scale? Or is it better for your organization to merge and thrive? This unique accelerator program will give participants attitudes and knowledge to make this crucial decision, and to plot an effective course for getting there. Not only that, TechChange’s signature blended learning approach is ideal for busy professionals hoping to squeeze in some just-in-time professional development in between everything else you do. 

After the first six weeks, a second Selective Phase will go even deeper to equip leaders with the skills and toolkits to move forward, including strategies to diversify revenue, repackage or productize services, and strengthen internal capabilities to support sustainable growth. The Selective Phase is limited to 50 leaders who participate in the Inclusive Phase and then decide to pivot and grow their organizations independently. 

Why not start the new year with an informed step toward a brighter organizational future? 

Learn more or sign up here.

When floods or heatwaves strike, local health workers on the frontlines often lack timely and contextually relevant data and information to help inform response. Climate change is reshaping the health landscape, yet many health systems have limited visibility to plan for its impacts. A new report from DataKind explores these gaps and outlines key opportunities to strengthen health system resilience.

Between 2030 and 2050, an estimated 250,000 additional deaths are projected from climate-sensitive diseases such as asthma, heatstroke, cholera, and malaria. Many of these deaths could be prevented with faster, more localized response. The hardest-hit communities are often those already facing socioeconomic disparities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where health systems are stretched to serve millions.

The disconnect is clear: while 74% of weather agencies share climate data with health departments, only 23% of health ministries actually report using it in their planning. This means decision-makers often lack the visibility to anticipate outbreaks before they occur, whether it’s a dengue outbreak after heavy rains or heat stroke during extreme heat.

To understand why this gap remains and how to address it, DataKind conducted a global landscape study exploring how climate and health data could be better connected to strengthen health systems resilience. The resulting report, launching at the Global Digital Health Forum this month, is based on interviews with 19 experts across four continents, including frontline health organizations, researchers, and funders. It outlines the main barriers behind the climate-health data gap and offers practical solutions to address them.

Five Challenges Limiting Climate-Health Data Integration

Our research identifies five interconnected barriers that prevent health decision-makers from accessing and using climate data effectively:

1. Limited local data: Most climate data in LMICs often isn’t available at the local scale needed for health planning. Without localized, real-time climate data, health workers are unable to anticipate outbreaks or prepare targeted interventions for their communities.

2. Missing local perspectives in data design: National data collection systems often prioritize globally aligned agendas, underrepresenting rural, Indigenous, and marginalized communities, leading to data and interventions that are misaligned with community needs.

3. Incompatible data systems: Climate and health data are often organized in different ways, using different geographies, data formats, and standards. Without shared definitions of climate-related health risks climate and health datasets remain siloed.

4. Capacity gaps across levels: From data literacy for frontline health workers to advanced analytics expertise for disease modeling, capacity constraints hinder the effective use of climate-health data. Health practitioners often lack guidance on which climate variables are relevant to specific health conditions, while the advanced technical capabilities needed for forecasting disease outbreaks are often limited in low resource contexts.

5. Fragmented governance and short-term funding: Collaboration between health, meteorology, and environment sectors is often ad-hoc. Limited funding and unclear data-sharing practices can often hinder the long-term partnerships needed to build integrated climate and health data systems. 

Promising Innovations: Demonstrating What’s Possible

Despite these challenges, innovative solutions emerging across LMICs show that barriers are addressable when interventions center local needs and integrate with existing workflows:

• Kenya’s community-driven flood response: Lwala Community Alliance integrated a flood response module into the Kenya Electronic Community Health Information System, enabling rapid mapping of affected regions and monitoring cholera outbreaks.
• Malawi’s integrated health and climate surveillance: Through the National Agriculture Management Information System (NAMIS), Malawi’s Ministries of Health, Agriculture, and Climate share data from local health assistants, satellite imagery, and weather stations, creating forecasts and risk alerts that inform both farmers and health responders.
• Nigeria’s innovative temperature monitoring: eHealth Africa repurposed cold-chain monitoring devices to collect ambient climate data in clinics, building hyper-local environmental baselines on existing infrastructure investments.
• Mozambique and India’s predictive modelling: AI-driven systems combine climate and disease surveillance data to forecast outbreaks of Malaria in Mozambique and Dengue in India, allowing for earlier interventions and smarter allocation of resources.

These examples prove a critical insight: effective solutions can build on existing infrastructure and empower local actors rather than introducing entirely new systems. They also demonstrate the growing role that emerging technologies can play in overcoming data barriers.

The Transformative Potential of AI and Data Science

Emerging AI technologies, including large language models, are transforming climate-health data integration. Tasks like cleaning data, converting file formats, and adjusting for geographic differences can now be automated, helping frontline workers access actionable insights faster.

AI-powered tools can guide frontline health workers through complex analytics, answer questions about data patterns, and translate between the distinct technical languages used by climate and health stakeholders.

Advanced technologies can accelerate progress but their success depends on the enabling environment behind them. Collaboration between subject matter experts and technology builders is essential to ensure that AI solutions address real-world needs and are grounded in local contexts. Equally important is investing in the foundational capacity that enables AI to work effectively and equitably, through strengthening data systems, developing local technical literacy, and embedding local ownership before moving toward advanced implementation. 

With these foundations in place, responsible innovation can be effectively pursued. The report identifies key actions to guide future investments and collaboration across the climate-health data landscape.

Six Strategic Recommendations for Action

Based on insights from experts and case studies, the report lays out six strategic actions for governments, donors, and technology partners to bridge the climate-health data gap.

1. Enhance access to localized, timely, and granular data: Prioritize community-level data collection, validation, and sharing to ensure relevance and equity.

2. Promote interoperability and data standardization: Develop shared data standards and templates for climate-sensitive health conditions and strengthen cross-sectoral coordination mechanisms.

3. Build capacity for climate-health data use: Provide practical training and peer-learning opportunities, from frontline literacy to advanced analytics and forecasting.

4. Design inclusive and user-centered tools: Build tools for low-connectivity settings with multilingual interfaces and AI features that make data easier to interpret, integrated with existing national health information systems.

5. Strengthen cross-sector and multi-level governance: Establish interministerial working groups, clarify data-sharing mandates, and engage communities as partners in decision-making.

6. Mobilize sustainable, locally anchored financing: Shift from short-term projects to long-term investment in locally led platforms and data ecosystems aligned with national health strategies.

The Path Forward

Closing the climate-health data gap requires more than technical solutions. It requires investing in the people and organizations closest to the work, building governance systems that listen to community priorities, and providing sustained funding that lasts beyond individual projects.

The report demonstrates that while AI and data science can significantly reduce barriers to analysis and improve how stakeholders forecast and respond to climate-related health risks, their effectiveness relies on human interpretation, clear governance frameworks, and institutional trust.

The innovations and successful models across contexts have shown what’s possible. Working together, governments, donors, technology partners, and community organizations can transform how health systems anticipate and respond to climate threats, ultimately protecting the communities most vulnerable to climate change.

Discover how climate and health data can transform health systems. Read the full report here, join us at the Global Digital Health Forum (Dec. 3-5, 2025) to explore these solutions in action, or write to us at partners@datakind.org.

On July 21, 2025, we discovered that a single TechChange employee’s email account had been compromised by a malicious actor. We took immediate action to secure the account and launch a full investigation to understand the nature and scope of the incident.

What Happened?

Our investigation found that an attacker gained unauthorized access to the account on July 14 using a compromised password and successfully completed two-factor authentication. On July 21, the attacker used this access to take two malicious actions:

1. They exported the employee’s contact list, which contained the names and email addresses of our partners, clients, and community members.
2. They sent a malicious phishing email with the subject line “#Katie Penland Request For Proposal (RFP)#” to the contacts on that list.

Our Immediate Response

Within minutes of discovering the activity, our team permanently locked the attacker out of the account, secured it against further access, and began a thorough investigation. We have confirmed that the unauthorized access was limited to this single email account and did not affect any other TechChange systems.

What This Means For You

• If you received an email from katie.penland@techchange.org on or around July 21, 2025, with the subject “#Katie Penland Request For Proposal (RFP)#”, please do not click on any links, open attachments, or reply to the message. It was not a legitimate communication from TechChange. Please delete it immediately.
• The data that was accessed was limited to contact information (names and email addresses). Our investigation has confirmed that no other sensitive information, such as financial data or passwords, was accessed or compromised.

How to Protect Yourself from Phishing Attacks

This incident is a reminder that phishing attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. 

Here are a few key things to look for to help you spot a malicious email:

• Check the Sender’s Address: Look for slight misspellings or unusual domains in the sender’s email address.
• Look for a Sense of Urgency: Attackers often try to create panic, demanding you take immediate action to avoid a negative consequence, like your account being closed.
• Beware of Generic Greetings: Phishing emails often use generic greetings like “Dear Customer” instead of your name.
• Hover Before You Click: Before clicking on any link, hover your mouse over it to see the actual destination URL. If the destination looks suspicious or doesn’t match the link’s text, don’t click it.
• Don’t Open Unexpected Attachments: Be wary of any unsolicited attachments, especially from people you don’t know or that seem out of character for the sender.

Our Commitment to Security

The security of our community is our highest priority. To prevent incidents like this from happening again, we are taking the following steps:

• We are accelerating the deployment of enhanced, phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) across our organization, including the use of physical security keys.
• We are conducting a full review of our security protocols and providing updated security awareness training for all of our staff.
• We are notifying individuals directly and have reported this incident to the relevant authorities.

We are deeply sorry for this incident and any concern it may have caused. The trust you place in us is something we work to earn every day, and we are committed to learning from this incident and strengthening our defenses to protect our community.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at 

security [at] techchange.org.

By Mignonne Fowlis, Senior Manager, Product & Programs, DataKind

Data collected by frontline health workers (FHWs) is essential to a robust healthcare delivery system, as is the quality of the data. Missed vaccinations, inadequate maternal care, delayed disease response – these aren’t just statistics, they are the devastating consequences of poor data quality in frontline health systems.  

If data collected by FHWs is inaccurate or inconsistent, or the data is mistrusted by decision makers, it undermines the entire healthcare delivery system, leading to poor health outcomes and inequities in healthcare delivery. High-quality care for communities requires improving confidence in FHW-collected data, ensuring it reliably informs patient care, shapes policies, and guides decisions.

What if we could automatically detect these data quality issues before they impact patient care?

An online tool to increase quality and trust of health data

Enter the Data Observation Toolkit (DOT), a community-informed, open-source software and certified Digital Public Good designed to automate data quality checks, detect anomalies, and enhance trust in health data. DOT stands out as a platform-agnostic, cost-effective, and user-friendly solution, designed to meet the needs of governments, NGOs, and frontline health organizations operating in diverse technical environments. For more information on how DOT works, see here.

From Uganda’s maternal health services to Lesotho’s specimen transport systems, DOT is demonstrating how automated data validation can strengthen healthcare delivery in resource-constrained settings. Below, we share three case studies that illustrate DOT’s real-world impact and its potential for broader adoption.

Improving Maternal Healthcare Service Delivery in Uganda

In 2024, for Uganda’s Lamwo and Ntungamo districts, DOT was integrated into the Ministry of Health’s electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS), serving over 684,000 people, with training provided for approximately 500 Village Health Teams. During this time, DOT automatically checked 5.3 million data rows, surfacing critical issues that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

• Nearly 8,000 pregnancies with fewer than four antenatal care visits were flagged for follow-up
• Multiple pregnancy outcomes incorrectly recorded under single pregnancy IDs were detected and revised
• Missed follow-ups and data duplication issues were caught early

These insights enable FHWs to provide more reliable maternal care services, directly improving health outcomes in their communities and building confidence in FHW-collected data. 

Its broader application within Medic’s Community Health Toolkit—a platform utilized by over 130,000 frontline health workers across 15 countries—has further streamlined data quality practices, supporting better health outcomes at scale. As of February 2025, DOT is live and fully operational in Uganda. Across the border, a DOT trial is underway in Kenya with the Ministry of Health.

Transforming Specimen Transport in Lesotho

In Lesotho, DOT is currently deployed by Riders for Health (Riders), a social enterprise that provides transport for healthcare delivery. Their challenge: managing quality control of data for nearly half a million specimens being transported annually for infectious disease monitoring, across ten districts serving 2.2 million people. Riders had previously relied on manual data quality check processes – an approach prone to errors and inefficiencies. 

DOT’s implementation enabled Riders to automate quality checks. Custom tests tailored to Riders’ operational needs, such as time-bound data checks, were developed, enabling faster identification and resolution of discrepancies. A custom cloud-hosted solution was developed to handle spreadsheet-based data, making DOT even more accessible to organizations without complex database systems. 

Building on the success in Lesotho, plans are underway to expand DOT’s use to Riders’ operations in The Gambia, Malawi, and Nigeria. 

Strengthening Global Vaccine Delivery Systems

Accurate data for vaccination programs can mean the difference between achieving or missing vaccine immunization targets. 

In partnership with Gavi and stakeholders across the Gavi Alliance and Innovation for Uptake, Scale, and Equity (INFUSE) Pacesetters, DOT was implemented as a prototype on global immunization datasets. This deployment demonstrated its ability to swiftly identify anomalies, enabling rapid remediation and enhancing the accuracy and reliability of vaccine data. See the demo and read the report here.

This successful proof-of-concept deployment highlighted the broader potential of AI and data science tools in global health. Building on these promising results, plans are underway to develop a scaling roadmap, enabling Gavi and its partners to harness these digital innovations for equitable vaccine access and immunization goals.

Key Lessons Learned

Our work with frontline health organizations has revealed three critical insights about improving data quality in resource-constrained settings:

1. Automation is indispensable: manual data quality checks simply cannot reach scale and they often miss critical issues that directly affect patient care.
2. Health organizations require flexible tools that adapt to their reality—whether working with basic spreadsheets or complex databases.
3. Success hinges on local ownership; when FHWs and health system managers can easily identify and address data quality issues themselves, they’re far more likely to maintain high data standards over time.

At DataKind, success means developing data science and AI solutions that are widely adopted and contribute meaningfully to addressing sector-level challenges. We design our tools to be accessible, flexible, and reusable, principles which were embedded into DOT’s development. 

Through our deployments, we’ve seen firsthand how data quality challenges undermine decision-making across multiple sectors. These experiences reinforce the need for platform-agnostic, sector-agnostic solutions like DOT to build trust in data and drive informed decision-making at scale.

Get Involved

If you’re working on an initiative to get insights from your datasets and improve data quality, check out DOT on the Digital Public Goods site, on GitHub, or write to us at partners@datakind.org. You can also connect with us in-person later this year at the Global Digital Health Forum in Nairobi!

DOT was developed by DataKind in partnership with Medic as the first solution to be advanced under DataKind’s work Frontline Health – a funded program to research, design, and build reusable, accessible, and flexible AI and data science tools that strengthen frontline health systems. This initiative was made possible through the generous support and partnership of Wellcome and Johnson & Johnson Foundation, each of whom played critical roles through key phases in the development and deployment of DOT.

I’ve facilitated many deliveries of the Digital Health: Planning National Systems (DH:PNS) course since its creation in 2020, from fully synchronous to blended, from Chile to Egypt. But up until last month, I’d never had the privilege of seeing DH:PNS alumni connect in-person to share their digital health experiences. 

GDHF 2024 featured first-ever in-person DH:PNS Alumni Event 

The Global Digital Health Forum is the world’s largest and most inclusive digital health event, a major relationship- and skill-building opportunity for implementers, vendors, donors, researchers and more. This hybrid conference is planned and delivered every year by TechChange in partnership with the Global Digital Health Network and a plethora of supportive offshore casinos sponsors. Among those is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), who also sponsors our DH:PNS course and the virtual Community of Practice (CoP) that keeps alumni connected long after they’ve completed their coursework. 

So it only made sense to utilize GDHF to convene our DH:PNS alumni and give them the chance to connect in real life. With USAID’s generous sponsorship, TechChange planned the first-ever in-person DH:PNS Alumni Event. 

Alumni found common ground and shared experiences through game-based play 

After reaching out through the CoP, TechChange convened a group of alumni who were attending the conference in a special side event to conclude the second day of GDHF. The event was designed to offer alumni and trainers the chance to network and share knowledge in an informal setting with tea, snacks, and round tables.

The event kicked off with a digital health icebreaker, where participants introduced themselves and discussed their work. Alongside the TechChange team, Merrick Schaefer, Director of USAID’s Center for Innovation and Impact (CII) in the Global Health Bureau at USAID and the funder of this initiative, gave brief opening remarks to welcome attendees.

Next, attendees split into two groups to play the Architects of Digital Health board game, discussing lessons learned from the game and their own country contexts. It was incredible to see people in person that I had gotten to know through months of online learning, and to watch them organically share their experiences dealing with concepts covered by the game in real life– crucial concepts like interoperability, the enterprise planning approach, and addressing health system challenges.dealing with shocks, and enterprise planning. 

Both teams “won” in about 40 minutes, offering valuable insights on digital health initiatives. 

Throughout the session, attendees also contributed ideas for future CoP activities on an “Asks and Offers” board. Common requests included live sessions for new modules and a contextualized version of the game. TechChange offered to share new modules and explore more networking opportunities in the future, given that attendees were so excited to see each other in person and build their relationships further. 

For participants, the Alumni Event crystallized concepts and relationships

But don’t just take it from me that the Alumni Event was helpful and inspiring–I’m a bit biased! Our alumni took to social media to share their delight and learning experiences from connecting with their fellow alumni at GDHF. 

Dr. Beatrice (Wangechi) Kariuki, an Associate Director of Data Analytics from Palladium, reflected on LinkedIn that understanding interoperability in the digital health space has stuck with her thanks to the boardgame. She shared that when she reflected on her experiences at GDHF three weeks later, the top of mind take-away for her was what it means and takes to implement interoperability in the digital health space, specifically noting “the power of games as a tool for experiential learning, [that allow] us to visualize things that are usually invisible… in a safe space where players can change their mind and strategy without impact.”

Shakira Irfaan from the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka said that “the networking opportunity was just as valuable as the learning experience. It was a pleasure to reconnect with global experts, meet old friends, and make new connections.” PityFaith Nyokabi, an Operations Manager from Kenya added that while GDHF as a whole left a lasting impact on her digital health professional journey, it was even more special since she got “to connect in person with my fellow Digital Health: Planning National Systems course alumni and trainers…and play a more advanced version of the board game Architects of Digital Health.”

Staying connected in the future 

The robust and vibrant alumni network of DH:PNS is one of the most special aspects of the course. More than 1000 people from over 90 countries have completed the course, and they work as national planners, funders, implementers and more. They are practitioners and providers, all of whom share a common passion: harnessing the power of digital health to improve health systems and health outcomes for people all over the world. 

And it was amazing to see just a small group of them in-person. Our digital health team is eagerly exploring new ways to convene and connect this vibrant community in the future. 

Interested in joining a future cohort or learning more about the course? Check out digitalhealthtraining.org to join the movement. 

Anyone who knows me is aware that connecting awesome social impact professionals to one another is one of my favorite things about working in this space. So I was delighted to chair a brand-new networking session at this year’s Global Digital Health Forum, specifically focused on connecting local innovators from Kenya with global funders of digital health. We’re talking CEOs and founders of some of Nairobi’s hottest ventures, paired with decision-makers from large funders such as USAID, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Madiro, and more.  

The session, sponsored by the Endless OS Foundation, wasn’t an awkward deal desk or a formulaic speed networking series. Rather, it was a meaningful chance for two audiences who rarely get enough face time with each other to build foundational relationships using the 4 Corners methodology and a brand-new TechChange tool we’re calling Opening Lines, a relationship-building card game for digital health professionals. 

Finding the Players, with a Little Help from our Friends 

When it came to creating the attendee list for the Innovator-Funder session, we scoured the registration rolls for the conference, even enlisting AI to help scan for founders and CEOs before checking out their ventures with a little side research. That process had its friction — the AI swept up a surprising volume of noise, including affiliate content profiles and SEO-farm bios, one cluster of which was linked to a best online casinos PA directory network that had apparently scraped and mirrored several founder databases, forcing a manual cleanup pass before we could trust the output. When automated sourcing still wasn’t nearly specific enough, we turned to our friends at Africa Health Business to identify local leaders of health-related NGOs and social ventures that would benefit from face-time with big-time funders. They’re focused on health organizations entering and expanding on the African continent, and had plenty of excellent connections to leverage for our invitations.

Rubayat Khan from the Endless Foundation was an amazing thought partner for building out the session– it was his idea that we focus on undercapitalized organizations, not those who are already swimming in seed funding from other philanthropic donors or impact investors. The foundation’s sponsorship of GDHF allowed us to position this session as an invite-only opportunity, adding to the prestige of the affair. Then a last- minute addition of funding from our long-time partners at PEPFAR meant that we could extend an offer of free registration to the invitees, making it a win-win for folks to join.

The list of participants wound up being an inspiring testament to the vibrancy of the health space in Kenya, including:

• Nafisa Jiddawi, Founder and CEO of WAJAMAMA, a women-led holistic health services organization in Zanzibar; 
• Daniel Mutambi, CEO of Dawapay, a digital platform for pharmaceutical and laboratory sales; and 
• Ikechukwu Anoke, CEO of Zuri Health, a Kenya-based mobile health platform.

Activating the Local Ecosystem for a Global Conference 

The quality of representation in this session exemplifies the intentional focus on activating the local ecosystem that our TechChange events team took toward planning the first-ever African iteration of GDHF. Through our Nairobi-based Event Manager, Noni Gatere, and our partner, the Global Digital Health Network, we:

• Prioritized a program featuring the highest levels of Kenyan government, which included a keynote address by the Cabinet Secretary of Health as well as an address by the Cabinet Secretary of Information Technology.  
• Engaged regional association HELINA, whose leaders were featured on multiple panels throughout the Forum. 
• Built a tiger team of Social Media Ambassadors who reported their insights and reflections from every day of the conference. 
• Reached out to partner organizations within TechChange’s global network with a presence in Kenya including our many generous sponsors. 
• Leveraged a wide variety of information sharing networks such as the Kenyan Health Informatics Association, Village Reach and Healthtech Hub Africa. 
• Supported the conference with an amazing group of volunteers from local universities and medical schools.
• Outreach with results– more than 300 GDHF attendees self-identified as Kenyan nationals.

There were a wealth of plenary sessions and workshops that highlighted local and pan-African expertise. And people loved it! While manning the Pop-Up Studio, the live video interview spot that we host throughout the conference, I heard again and again that folks appreciated this aspect of the conference…especially given that it was the first time we hosted it outside of Washington D.C. 

Sparks and Innovations to Follow 

When you pair social impact professionals from different sides of the space, magic happens. I saw it first hand, watching the energetic conversations that occurred during the Innovator-Funder session. Participants used the relationship-building cards to break through the typical small talk and connect on a deeper level. In the 4 corners activity, they “voted with their feet” to move to different sides of the room reflecting their answers to a wide variety of questions, including: What’s your professional super power? And How do you feel about AI right now? With options ranging from “you love it with all your heart” to “you’re terrified and have successfully avoided it so far.”

Whether it’s partnering on grant-funded projects or investing in new digital technologies with the potential to remake the digital health landscape Kenya and beyond, I can’t wait to follow the fruits of the relationships that began at GDHF, and see what local activations are in store for next year’s conference. 

With Thanksgiving this week, we here at TechChange wanted to share some thoughts on gratitude. To keep things interesting, we decided to ask some of the most inspiring people we know: the coaches in our Impact Coach Network, the only coaching platform specifically designed for purpose-driven leaders in global development, climate change, philanthropy, and non-profit work. Our Impact Coaches work with social impact professionals to help them discover their goals, plan for difficult transitions, and achieve their full potential. 

Here are just two of these amazing individuals on gratitude, resilience, and hope for the future.

Lauren Goldberg

Areas of Expertise: Corporate Social Responsibility, Climate Change, Tech for Good, Social Enterprise, Disability Justice, Cooperatives, Transportation, Urban Design 

Lauren Goldberg acknowledges “the historically flawed origin story of the holiday, and the erasure of Indigenous genocide.” Still, she says that “the theme of gratitude is a sentiment that [she] can appreciate, including the gratitude for your personal journey, for the many people that have helped you to navigate along the way.” Goldberg is a social entrepreneur who specializes in helping emerging leaders break free from traditional models of leadership that are rooted in systems of oppression and supremacy culture. She helps clients embrace their own style of kind, compassionate and bold leadership. She had this to say about a mindset game-changer she’s discovered:

“We often talk about expressing gratitude for where we’ve been, but in recent years I’ve learned a gratitude gamechanger: having gratitude for the future. No matter how we feel about where we are now, it’s about keeping a sense of optimism that good things are coming our way. And if you experience anticipatory anxiety like I do and worry about all the things that could go wrong to prepare yourself for when all the things go wrong – you already know worrying doesn’t really prepare you; it only drains you. So doing the opposite can feel like a radical act. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs and practices, this sense of faith in where you are heading, how those future experiences will continue to shape you, inspire you, motivate you, teach you, and ultimately bring you closer to where you are meant to be–that is some next-level gratitude we can strive for, especially in these times of uncertainty.”

Julia Firestone

Areas of Expertise: Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise, Education, Nonprofits 

After working in nonprofits, the corporate social impact sector, consulting and social entrepreneurship, Julia Firestone knows what it feels like to get burnt out during a job search– and to need to heal from a toxic workplace culture. The ICF-certified Transformational Coach and founder of The Purpose Career Lab specializes in leadership development for social impact professionals, teams and organizations. When asked about gratitude in the context of an evolving career, she had this to say:

“I encourage people to think about gratitude with this question: What are all of the things that had to happen in order for me to be here right now as the person I am today? Not only in the recent past, but going way back to the single-celled organisms that had to grow and morph and evolve from billions of years ago to land me in this moment. This pause can help you acknowledge the ways that humanity–and you as an individual–have learned and grown already, as well as the many people and experiences who helped you to learn these lessons, both inspiring and challenging.”

We hope these words struck a chord.

If you’re struggling this season with not feeling good enough or not knowing what’s next for you in your career, consider working with a coach as an investment in yourself. As Lauren Goldberg told me, “working with a coach can help get you movin’ and groovin’ towards your social impact career goals–in a way that works for you.”

One of the most exciting aspects of working at an international social enterprise like TechChange is having the opportunity to support amazing events in a wide variety of locations – both online and in person across the globe. Whether near or far, we help our partners bring their visions to life for global conferences such as AccessNow’s RightsCon and the Society of International Development (SID-US)’s annual Inclusive Development conference.

As the head of our business development team, I love joining these incredible convenings. Right now, I’m gearing up (and packing!) to attend our Global Digital Health Conference, which will be held in Nairobi, Kenya–and worldwide, online–on December 4-6. 

Whether you’re joining us at GDHF or planning to travel for a different convening in the near future, here are some of my key tips for successfully preparing to attend a conference abroad. 

Prepare to make the most of the agenda–and the destination 

Spending time with the conference agenda ahead of time is a MUST. I like to review all of the options and then make an advanced plan for the three sessions a day that are “can’t miss.” Usually, there’s about five more that are on the “nice to see” list– and I get to those if I can, but the “can’t miss” ones I make sure I get there. I try to be realistic about my time and leave room for spontaneity.

I also check out the speaker list ahead of time, to see if anyone is on there that I definitely want to connect with. Pro tip: I send a message ahead of time on LinkedIn. Something like, “Hey, I’ve registered for the conference, and I’m going to be there in my capacity as {insert role here}. I’ve been following your work and I’d love the opportunity to meet up there.” The beautiful thing is you don’t actually have to set up the meeting in advance. Just go up to the speaker after their session, and they will most likely remember your outreach– and then it’s like you know them already! 

Another tip… I love my TechChange coworkers, but I usually limit time with my team to one after-hours hang out – whether dinner or happy hour – and then use the rest of my non-conference time to maximize connections with people I don’t have the opportunity to interact with as often. It can be super tempting to want to spend all my time with people I already know so I have to fight that impulse to grow my network. 

Preparing intentionally for in-person interactions also means thinking about how you’ll follow up once those conversations begin to turn into real opportunities. Alongside advance outreach and thoughtful scheduling, having a simple way to exchange and retain accurate contact information can make a meaningful difference in whether a connection fades or develops further.

Digital vCards provide a practical solution by allowing professionals to instantly share updated profiles, links, and relevant resources without relying on paper cards that may be misplaced. When aligned with broader online visibility efforts supported by SEO Experts, these tools help ensure that new contacts can easily find, remember, and reconnect with you after the event. By combining strategic networking habits with modern digital identity tools, conference interactions become less transactional and more sustainable, reinforcing long-term relationship building beyond the initial handshake.

No matter how often you travel, going to a new country is special. I’m there to work, but I want to see a little bit of the destination too. First I’ll consult a local colleague or partner for ideas on what to prioritize. (Bonus points for anything involving nature or the outdoors!) Then I’ll pick one thing that feels worth putting effort into, but not so ambitious that it will be draining to make happen (no in-country flights or six hour minibus rides, for example). After GDHF next week, I’m excited to check out Nairobi National Park. Fingers crossed that I catch a glimpse of a leopard in the wild, right on the outskirts of this thriving megacity! 

Travel tips on arrival and departure

People definitely have their preferences on the best time to arrive before a conference, and when to leave. Some manage their schedules right down to the wire– dragging a suitcase into the registration table, and leaving before the main speaker has even put down the mic to make it back to the airport. 

Not me.

I like to arrive a full day before conference proceedings begin so I can get my bearings, start to acclimate to the local environment, and rest and recharge. This also allows a grace period for travel snafus such as delays or cancellations.

On the other end, I make arrangements to leave the day after the conference ends. You just never know what encounters you’re going to make on the last day, and if you don’t have the pressure of getting out there it can yield some wonderful and spontaneous encounters, like the time I wound up on a beach in Cyprus with a bunch of new conference friends. 

One of the things I see a lot of people struggle with is that they try to live their lives back at home while also being present at a conference. These are the folks you see trapped in the hallway most of the day, carrying a laptop or talking urgently into their ear buds. To me, they’re stuck in between.

When I’m at a conference, I clear most if not all of my other meetings and then sandwich the things I have to do (email, Slack, etc.) in dedicated windows of time. This allows me to really make the most of the time I’m there AND fulfill the obligations that don’t stop just because I’m traveling. Naturally, it’s easier said than done. I usually have to start rearranging my schedule 2-3 weeks ahead to make the puzzle pieces fit. But it’s worth it: I conserve the energy it takes to constantly multi-task, and put that energy toward engaging with the content or connecting with others.

I also plan ahead with my spouse well in advance of the conference so that my family has what they need when I’m gone.

It pays to be present, and open to new experiences and connections– you never know what you’re going to learn, or who you’ll meet. 

What are the implications of the USAID Digital Policy for implementing partners? Can the newly refreshed Digital Principles offer guidance? How can implementing partners engage with these frameworks in meaningful ways? 

Long-time TechChange partner Chemonics hosted a hybrid event focused on these questions, Doing Development Digitally: The Next Decade of USAID’s Digital Policy, featuring USAID’s Chief Digital Development Officer, Chris Burns, USAID’s Senior Director of Policy for the Digital Impact Alliance, Kay McGowan, and Chemonics’ digital practice lead, Manisha Aryal, as moderator.

New Digital Policy provides vision for the future 

Building on the 2020 Digital Strategy– the Agency’s first– the new Digital Policy is intended to set the course for the next ten years of investment towards what USAID calls “a future where digital technology promotes inclusive growth, fosters resilient and democratic societies, advances human rights, and empowers all, including the most vulnerable.” During the drafting process, policy researchers flagged the unchecked spread of top bitcoin casinos as a pointed example of how deregulated digital finance can extract wealth from vulnerable communities rather than build it— precisely the predatory model the Agency’s framework is designed to dismantle. The policy outlines goals for this period, guiding principles, and a learning agenda to build the evidence base.

(Don’t have time to read the entire Policy document? PRO TIP: Check out this one page cheatsheet for a primer on the three goals of the new policy: Build, Transform, and Protect.)

From ‘digital development’ to ‘doing development in a digital world’ 

At the event, Chief Digital Development Officer Burns emphasized: “We are in a new era, a digital age…[but] What has stayed the same? The need to invest in the foundational components of a country’s digital ecosystem, the foundational rails on which digital technologies thrive.”

He pointed to the growth of agency expertise in support of this objective, including Digital Development Advisors who are posted to various Missions and inform the programming on-site, in partnership with host governments, along with the Country Digital Ecosystem Assessments that have been done. 

Kay McGowan emphasized how the Digital Principles have changed to reflect updated priorities of doing development in a digital world: do no harm, strive for radical inclusion, and focus on the complex risks and opportunities stemming from the use of personal digital data. She expanded: “When the principles were first released, they were responding to a different moment. ‘Design with the user’ is really obvious now, but it wasn’t always. Ten years in, the world is now much more digital, with a much richer understanding of the opportunities but also the risks that technologies represent.” 

But can we look the other way when ‘digital darlings’ commit abuses?

While the speakers shared their viewpoints, the audience honed in on an underlying point of controversy: the very countries often celebrated for digital development advances, such as India and Kenya, are often the same ones who inflict digital abuses on their populations through selective shut-downs and other repressive measures. 

McGowan responded that “frameworks and strategies are not going to stop a sovereign state government from shutting down the internet. With migration and stresses, there is a greater risk of leaving so many people excluded, digital haves and have-nots, especially when you look at youth bulges in certain countries, people have to be more connected. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be fighting for more protections, but on balance we have to proceed with including more people.” 

Despite political changes, still we persist

In the wake of an American election that means a transfer of power from one party to another, the question was raised about what this political change means for digital development at USAID. Chris Burns noted that “this is an area that’s continued to have bipartisan support. The work that we’ve been doing will continue into the [new] administration. When we look ten years down the road– the timeline for this policy–we acknowledge that this is a shared responsibility that every part of the sector has to embrace. 

When asked about how this conversation would look different in five years, moderator Manisha Aryal shared that she hoped that the knowledge sharing and community building that is happening now at events like the TechChange-hosted Global Digital Development Forum, means that there will be more widespread integration of best practices and collaboration among the sectors. 

TechChange CEO Nick Martin, also in attendance, agreed, adding, “Digital development is how we reach people, no matter who’s in power. Collaboration and connection is how we continue to share our experiences, build our effectiveness, and reach out intentionally to those who need it most.”