Breakthrough and lifesaving innovations in global health like new vaccines or treatments for widespread diseases are exciting. But after the innovation is unleashed, often the hardest part remains: how to get these life-saving products and insights into adoption in places with the greatest need. Global and national regulations, a vast array of national and private health systems, insufficient medical staff or training, and often tough terrain can all stand between a patient and a cure. We’ll hear how global health leaders are attacking these problems creatively.
Atul Gawande MD, MPH is a surgeon, professor, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and is professor in the Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he is Executive Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation. Dr. Gawande is also Founder and Chairman of the Lifebox Foundation, a nonprofit reducing deaths in surgery globally. He is also a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine, and author of four bestselling books, most recently Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End.
Barbara Bush is CEO and co-founder of Global Health Corps (GHC), which mobilizes a global community of young leaders to build the movement for health equity. GHC was founded in 2009 by six twentysomethings who were challenged by Peter Piot at the aids2031 Young Leaders Summit to engage their generation in solving the world’s biggest health challenges. Barbara and her co-founders believe health is a human right and that their generation must build the world where this is realized. Since that time, GHC has placed almost 1,000 young leaders from more than 40 countries with non-profit and government health organizations like Partners In Health and the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, and the United States, developing them as creative, effective, and compassionate leaders along the way. Prior to GHC, Barbara worked in educational programming at the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, where she supported design-thinking programs for high school students and faculty across the US. She has worked with Red Cross Children’s Hospital in South Africa and UNICEF in Botswana, and has traveled with the UN World Food Programme, focusing on the importance of nutrition in ARV treatment. Barbara is a member of UNICEF’s Next Generation Steering Committee and the UN Global Entrepreneurs Council. She sits on the Board of Directors for Covenant House International, PSI, Friends of the Global Fight for AIDS, TB, and Malaria. She is a Draper Richards Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a World Economic Forum Young Global Shaper, and a fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation. In 2011, Barbara was named one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year, in 2013 she was recognized as one of Newsweek’s Women of Impact, and in 2015 she was named to Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business list. Barbara graduated from Yale University with a degree in Humanities in 2004.
Regional Representative for Africa, Epicentre, Médecins Sans Frontières
Professor Yap Boum II is the regional representative for Epicenter Africa, the research arm of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), known also as Doctors Without Borders. He is currently based in Yaoundé, Cameroon. From 2009 to 2014, Boum headed the Epicenter’s research base in Mbarara, Uganda, leading research projects on tuberculosis and malaria among others. Most recently, in Guinea, he was in charge of laboratory Ccordination for the MSF/Epicenter phase three trial for the vaccine against Ebola, VSV-EBOV.
Boum is currently involved in setting up a Center for Diarrheal Disease research in collaboration with Mbarara University of Sciences and Technology where he has a professorship in microbiology. In addition, he teaches public health and microbiology at the Universities of Yaoundé I, Douala in Cameroon and Virginia in the US.
Boum is also co-founder of Kmerpad, a nonprofit that developed washable sanitary pads to empower women and allow for them to fully participate in their education. Kmerpad also aims to have a critical impact on the huge amount of waste generated by the use of non-reusable sanitary pads.
In all his work, Boum is inspired by the vision of a healthy and wealthy Africa. He aims to advance research and innovative solutions and to promote the creation of a critical mass of young Africans to address the social and public health challenges Africa faces.
