High-Impact Growth

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Julius Mbeya, Co-CEO of the Lwala Community Alliance, to discuss their approach to addressing health challenges in Kenya. By using a community-led health model, they are able to provide quality, affordable healthcare to underprivileged communities, and reduce maternal and under-five deaths. This is part one in a two-part series on the important work Lwala Community...

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Olukunle Akinwusi, Technical Officer for Digital Access at FIND & Erica Troncosco, Technical Advisor and Portfolio Lead for Frontier Technology Solutions at Jhpeigo, at the Global Digital Health Forum, to discuss the value of innovation in improving health equity through thoughtful diagnostics, involving the user in the design process, investing in the digital l...

In today’s episode we flip the script and Jonathan Jackson interviews Amie Vaccaro to discuss her career journey, her experiences, and the lessons learned so far in growing the marketing team at Dimagi.  The potential of digital to support iNGOs and governments can only be really unlocked when it becomes a foundational layer that supports all aspects of the organization’s work horizontally. We oft...

High-Impact Growth podcast co-hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro reflect on 9 months of podcasting, from finding their voice, to key insights, tools, and insider tips for those considering starting a podcast. Some topics covered in this conversation include:  What it means to share non-obvious perspectives - why they matter and the tradeoffs How to think about planning for your podcast - from...

Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro sit down with Liz Wiseman, researcher, executive advisor, and author of New York Times bestseller Multipliers and three other books to learn about multiplier leadership. In this candid conversation, Liz discusses the research behind Multipliers and how to apply it within global health and development to ensure you are fully realizing your team’s potential. Some to...

Jonathan Jackson unpacks the session he led at the Global Digital Health Forum called “Is the Digital Health Community Creating Better Jobs for Users?” In it, he discusses the idea of introducing a 10th Principle for Digital Development  'Make the users’ job better.' Creating better jobs for better outcomes is at the heart of Dimagi’s work and 5 year strategy. Some topics covered in this...

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Lauren Magoun, Dimagi’s Senior Health Strategy Specialist, at the Global Digital Health Forum to discuss the realities of the global mental health crisis, the lack of access to mental health care, and the innovative work Dimagi is driving to develop digital solutions that enable frontline providers  to address the gap in mental health care. Some topics covered...

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Clayton Sims, Dimagi’s Chief Technology Officer, at the Global Digital Health Forum, to discuss the opportunities, realities & future of artificial intelligence in the global health and development space. Some topics covered in this conversation include: Exploring the highest impact use cases of AI for global health and development including language models, ima...

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Jacaranda Health’s co-executive directors Nick Pearson & Sathy Rajasekharan at the Global Digital Health Forum, to discuss challenges and learnings along their journey to impact in maternal and child health in Kenya. Some topics covered in this conversation include: Navigating a major pivot as a digital health organization from running private health centers to...

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Mercy Corps’ Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team – Meri Ghorkhmazyan, Senior Director MEL, Alex Tran, Senior MEL Advisor and Hanna Camp, Senior Advisor, Technology for MEL. They discuss how MEL is the next generation of M&E and how it has fuelled program adaptation and higher level learning to improve frontline impact at Mercy Corps. Some topics covere...

Jonathan Jackson shares his candid reflections and takeaways from his time at the recent World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, as well as his stance on some of the biggest problems we are facing and the biggest bets we need to make to create a better world. Some topics covered in this conversation include: The background of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and its rol...

Jonathan Jackson sits down with Rebecca Distler, Strategist for AI, Data and Digital Health at the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation at the Global Digital Health Forum, to discuss the challenges and opportunities of digital health and AI. Some topics covered in this conversation include: Investing in enabling environments for digital health The need to plan for day 2000 on day 1, and the tension betw...

“If you want to get a holistic picture of a person's health, you have to look at everything that concerns them, including for instance the issues of the local authorities - sanitation…water, everything to do with that. So we should not limit digital health to ministry of health. It's something that will go to all the other government ministries and agencies and may I say including the private sect...

“I think the work that we're doing is inherently really complex. A lot of our partners are doing complex work and they're working in really complex environments. This a very necessary value because without this, we wouldn't actually be on that road to greater impact. “ - Avni Singhal “We intentionally run towards taking on the highest impact projects. Knowing that of our portfolio of national scal...

“For us as a country, we want to implement and deploy comprehensive systems. A system that actually encompasses everything. Not only focusing on one company. HIV may be a starting point, but we want these resources not only to be limited to HIV, but they should cover everything. And by doing that, we ensure that we are taking care of everything. If a mother is pregnant, is HIV positive, or also ha...

“I think the out-collaborate piece really stands out for me on this value. And a lot of our partners come to my mind. Dimagi’s had a lot of experience working across healthcare, across agriculture, across education. Yet we always approach a new partner as a unique new project that we're starting from scratch. We have a strong product, we have a strong method, but we're always looking to learn thro...

“80% of the time, it's easy to be respectful and empathetic. But that last 20% of the time, that's where the rubber really meets the road. It's being respectful and empathetic all of the time that really brings the team together and allows us to have these outsized, impactful outcomes… And that's really hard in an industry that is so stressful and complex as ours.”  - Jonathan Jackson, Dimagi...

Jonathan Jackson talks to Nick Martin, CEO of TechChange at the Global Digital Health Forum to discuss the evolution and maturation of the digital health industry over the last 10 years, including the role of training, great content, project sustainability and shared buy-in in creating the outcomes we all know are possible. Some topics covered in this conversation include: How digital health has m...

“At Dimagi we’re not afraid of making mistakes. We’re not afraid of failing. We actually like to fail and learn through each other.” - Avni Singhal “We try to partner to a much larger extent than I think would be reasonable for a software company under normal market conditions. But we’re not under normal market conditions, and what we’re trying to do and accomplish…requires a huge amount of boldne...

“We went from no solution to a fully deployed at scale solution in less than six weeks. And all of that is really a testament to the power of a technology platform.” Sarah Sagan, Senior Director of Delivery “I felt really patriotic. I felt really proud of my government. I felt really lucky to have the curtain lifted on my healthcare system and the way that state and local government contribute to...

“It's not just getting started or getting to scale it's…how are you going to keep improving at scale?” - Jonathan Jackson, CEO and Co-Founder, Dimagi Today we tell the story of the largest digital health project Dimagi has ever worked on supporting the Government of India’s Integrated Child Development Services, which is the largest public health and nutrition program in the world. Launched in 201...

What is the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and why does it matter? Jonathan Jackson and Dr. Kelly Collins attended the 77th UN General Assembly and join the podcast to share their key takeaways from the week, including the Global Fund’s 7th Replenishment. You’ll also hear reflections on the talent gap in global health and development. Related Resources: PEPFAR’s new strategy: https://www.sta...

"Unlike other technology sectors, the cost of failure is extremely high, but it's not born by the organization. It's born by the user....And so while we learn and it's helpful for us to view [digital health pilots] as a funnel, that's an incomplete view of the world because there is a real cost to equipping users and then dropping support for the application and dropping support from the organizat...

Tim Wood has been at the forefront of building and investing in technology to improve health outcomes in low-and-middle-income countries over the last 3 decades - including work at the Grameen Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) where he served as a Senior Program Officer. During his time at BMGF he led a transformative, platform-level investment in Dimagi and its technol...

Jonathan Jackson is joined by 4 early Dimagi employees who were most involved in the creation of CommCare, the digital platform for impactful frontline work. CommCare is a low-code application builder that allows NGOs and governments to build applications to enable their frontline teams to deliver impactful services and collect data. It has been used by 1 million people all time and across 130 cou...