Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Welcome! We’d love to learn a bit more about you! Please share as much or as little as you’d like — from hobbies and areas of interest to what brought you to the Community Health Toolkit Forum!

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Hi Everyone, I’m Isaac Holeman, I’m a co-founder and research lead at Medic Mobile, and a professor of global health at the University of Washington. Launching the Community Health Toolkit as a global public good has been a dream of mine for years, and it makes me so happy that you found your way here!

I met @joshnesbit in the middle of 2008, we launched our first digital health projects that year and incorporated Medic Mobile as a public charity in 2010. Ever since then we’ve been working on free and open source software that is now part of the CHT. For the first three years I was living out of a suitcase, traveling from project to project in Malawi and Kenya—we were smaller and scrappier in those days :slightly_smiling_face: It’s been so exciting to see an explosion of talented new people joining our community.

Working for a healthier and more humane world can be daunting, but I feel incredibly hopeful about all the progress we’re making. On this forum, I’ll be focusing on the research category, and you’ll find me joining discussions on design and implementation as well. Whatever your background, there are so many ways to contribute to the CHT. I hope you’ll stick around and get to know us.

When I’m not at work I enjoy fishing and hiking, reading fantasy and utopian/dystopian/speculative fiction, and singing. Fun fact—I’ve performed in seven languages and been in musical theatre, an a cappella group, a jazz choir, a gospel choir, a Dutch chapel choir, and an Anglican chapel choir! I’ve learned so much from traveling and living in different parts of the world and I’d love to hear where you’re from and why you ended up here :slightly_smiling_face:

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It’s wonderful to be here! My name is Josh Nesbit, and I’m the co-founder and CEO at Medic Mobile.

I’m doing this work because I believe health is a human right, and we have a responsibility and opportunity to fight a status quo that is unfair and unjust. I hope this forum can be a place where expertise is released, learnings are shared, ideas improve, and unnecessary walls are broken down. I believe moral imagination is best cultivated in community with others. My perspective is that we can and must do more to get families and health workers on the frontlines more of the resources they need and deserve.

I expect to learn so much from each of you.

As background, this post explains why Medic Mobile is contributing to the Community Health Toolkit. This letter provides some thought on the moment we are in right now, standing on the shoulders of those community health workers and other colleagues who have been advancing global health equity for decades.

Very much looking forward to working together!

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Hi everyone! I’m Francesca Garrett, Community of Practice Manager for the Community Health Toolkit, and your tour guide and help desk here on the Forum.

I’m passionate about fostering collaborations, reaching out to others in our field, and learning alongside our community. If you’re a new user, I’d love to help you find your way around. And if you’d like to lead an online workshop or learning session, or even host a local event, I’d love to connect!

When I’m not at work, I’m usually playing board games, studying French, or tracking down local street art in the cities I travel to. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all! :sparkles:

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Hi! I’m Jacqueline Edwards, COO of Medic Mobile, the technical steward for CHT. I am so happy to be here with everyone and can’t wait to engage with members of this community. I’m looking forward to learning from your experiences deploying technology in support of community health worker programs.

Don’t hesitate to reach out directly if I can help you with anything, direct you to helpful resources, or brainstorm about how to design or support the implementation of your ideal app!

Jacqueline

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Hi everyone! I’m Helen Olsen, Impact Manager at Medic Mobile. I’m thrilled to be a part of this community and I am looking forward engaging with others about the Community Health Toolkit!

I’m here because I believe in health as a human right and I believe in the power of data to help link people to care at the last mile. At Medic Mobile, I work with other members of our Impact Team to use our data to answer critical questions about how our tools are serving our users and our community of partners. I look forward to sharing more about our work with you! :star_struck:

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Hi, I’m Mike from Partners In Health. I used to work “in the Boston Office” but now I live in Kansas City, MO and work remotely for the Monitoring Evaluation and Quality team.

Our Malawi office of Partners In Health is called APZU (Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo), and they are engaged in a very active implementation there, which is part of a larger ecosystem of software products that we use, like OpenMRS, OpenBoxes, and others. For more info, you will find us on the Digital Health Atlas.

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Glad to have you with us, @mjohnson! You’ve got one of my favorite museums in Kansas City — the The Nelson-Atkins. After all, who can resist 18-foot-tall badminton statues? Looking forward to learning together!

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Hi. I am Ronald Munjoma, based in Harare, Zimbabwe. I am interested in learning more about the Community Health Toolkit and possibly help implement the toolkit in Zimbabwe.

I am interested in and involved in a number of Free Open Source products - Open Data Kit, Senaite LIMS and GNU Health to mention just but a few.

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Hi @munjoma, we’re so glad to have you with us! I’d love to answer any questions you have about the Community Health Toolkit, and hear more about your project in Zimbabwe. Wonderful to have an open source champion joining our community!

Hi Everyone!

I’m Kanika and I’m a Project Manager at Medic Mobile. I’m based out of New Delhi and I support our deployments in Asia.

I’m passionate about exploring ways in which technology can be leveraged to increase efficiency of interventions to improve people’s lives and I’m thrilled to be a part of this community.

Outside of work, things that make me happy include tea, books, yoga and music gigs performed by local artists.

I’m really looking forward to sharing more about what we do and learning more about your work!

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Hi All, I’m Kyle Flick and I just graduated from my MBA program at IE Business School based in Madrid. I started a nonprofit a couple of years ago called Trek Coalition and we focus on delivering healthcare to parts of rural South America (specifically Ecuador for now). Through this experience, we discovered the need for better health records to keep track of our patients and thus delivering better care!

This past year in my MBA I focused on developing a prototype to test in the field and through my research came across Medic Mobile. I then reached out to @joshnesbit who gave me some sound advice and a quick intro to the organization which I found very helpful and impressive.

I was connected to this forum through @Max as we both are Pitt alum (Hail to Pitt) and am really looking forward to learning from you all. In my free time I love sports, jazz music and reading while traveling around the world to learn about and meet new people.

Feel free to reach out, thanks!

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Hi, I am Pawan. I am working as a Project Officer at Medic Mobile based in Banke, Nepal. I enjoy my work giving time in serving and supporting hard to reach people. I am thrilled to be Part of Medic Mobile which uniqueness is Technology for health workers and volunteers who are working from very remote setup.

I had completed Diploma in General Medicine from Kailpal Hospital and College, Bachelor in Health Education from Tribhuwan University and pursuing remotely Masters in Rural Development from Tribhuwan University and plan to do thesis and research on scope of mHealth in rural development.

I love to think and brainstorm to solve the problems and challenges in creative way. I also love reading blogs and news and travel new places.

Thank you!

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Welcome @kflick, I’m so glad you found us! I’d love to hear more about your prototyping, and what technologies you’re exploring at the moment!

PS: “Kind of Blue” is on near constant rotation in our house! Nice to know another jazz fan!

Hi, I am Dr Sanchika Gupta. I am a public health professional with six years of working experience amalgamated with two years of clinical practice in Obstetrics and Gynecology and four years in core public health with an expertise in advocacy, project management, monitoring and evaluation, and community-based research. My fieldwork in national and International NGOs has spanned on various issues, such as family planning, adolescent health, maternal and child health among others. I can be reached out at sanchika12@gmail.com.

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Dear All,
My name is Dr Francis Ohanyido, the President of the West African Academy of Public Health. I am a public health physician and a long time advocate of digital health.
My organisation is interested in collaboration/partnerships in the West Africa subregion to strengthen digital health for universal health coverage.

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Hello everyone,
Greetings from Dili, Timor-Leste! My name is Gabriela. I work as Health Team Leader at Catalpa International. I am managing a few digital health programs including Liga Inan, an mHealth program that focuses on strengthening the engagement between health care providers and expectant parents to increase safer pregnancies and delivery in Timor-Leste. Happy to learn from peers in this group and to share our experience from Timor-Leste.

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Hi everyone!

My name is Marc Abbyad, and I am the Chief Product Officer at Medic Mobile. I strongly believe that health is a human right, and I am excited that we are in this community together so that our collective experiences can be used to advance human flourishing in an equitable way.

I first got involved with Medic Mobile as a volunteer while living in Malawi back in 2010, and joined full time in 2011. I have spent my time since then designing, developing, and deploying mHealth tools in more than a dozen countries. I am based in Toronto, Canada when I am not travelling to spend time with users, partners, and teammates.

Looking forward to our collaborations here to improve community health systems!!

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Hello everyone I’m delighted to be here Im Billings Ouma, a community health assistant in Siaya , Kenya, Siaya is one of the counties in Kenya doing digital health reporting . I hope to interact and learn more on this noble platform

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