Shows
High-Impact GrowthSkin-to-Skin, at Scale: Ansh’s Supriya Bansal on Saving NewbornsKangaroo Mother Care, prolonged skin-to-skin contact between a caregiver and a small or premature baby, is one of the most effective ways to prevent newborn deaths, and one of the hardest to deliver well. Supriya Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Ansh, joins Jonathan Jackson to share how her team is bringing it into government hospitals in India, growing from two pilot hospitals to 15 district hospitals in Rajasthan, with Madhya Pradesh next. Supriya explains why Kangaroo Care is really a behavior change intervention, why Ansh's nurses ask new mothers to try it for just one day, and why she designed...
2026-10-2851 min
High-Impact GrowthAI Chatbots in Humanitarian Crises: GOAL's Hard-Won LessonsWhat does it actually take to deploy AI chatbots safely in humanitarian response? Liz Devine, Head of the Program Technical Team at GOAL Global, joins Amie Vaccaro, Jonathan Jackson, and Dimagi's Erin Quinn to share hard-won lessons from building a multichannel chatbot during an mpox outbreak in Sierra Leone — and adapting it for cholera response in South Sudan. With over a decade in the humanitarian sector, from South Sudan to the Syria and Ukraine responses, Liz brings a rare ground-level perspective on innovating with vulnerable populations. She explains why an emergency is the worst time to build new tech, wh...
2026-10-2128 min
High-Impact GrowthJoey Savoie: Why Grantmaking, Not Money, Is the BottleneckEffective grantmaking is now the real bottleneck in philanthropy, says Joey Savoie, founder of Elevate Philanthropy and co-founder of Ambitious Impact, the charity incubator behind more than 65 new organizations. After years of scarcity, a wave of new tech wealth has flipped the question for many NGOs from surviving budget cuts to what they would do with double. In this one-on-one conversation with Dimagi CEO Jonathan Jackson, Joey explains why the hardest part isn't the money, but finding people who know how to give it away well. He shares why the most honest charities often get penalized for their honesty...
2026-10-1559 min
High-Impact GrowthJustin Steele on the Legibility Trap in PhilanthropyJustin Steele gave away nearly $700 million leading Google.org’s philanthropy across the Americas, and he watched funding flow to the nonprofits closest to power rather than those closest to the problem. Now the founder of Kindora, a public benefit corporation using AI to help nonprofits find funders who’d actually say yes, he calls this the legibility trap. In conversation with Dimagi CEO Jonathan Jackson, Justin takes listeners inside a grant maker’s head: how a seven-person team ran a $150 million annual budget, why portfolios so often follow personal networks, and why honest feedback is so rare. They debate...
2026-10-1250 min
High-Impact GrowthAI Philanthropy Is Coming. Are You Legibly Excellent?What happens when AI philanthropy actually arrives? Jack Lewars advises donors giving up to nine figures a year — and he argues the wave of wealth expected from AI company IPOs is more locked in than skeptics think, with potentially $130 billion or more committed to charity even in conservative scenarios. In this conversation with hosts Amie Vaccaro and Jonathan Jackson, Jack explains why concentration is the real risk ("two big funders beat one twice the size"), why the bottleneck to scaling global health organizations isn't money but managing directors and chiefs of staff, and why he has no patience for sc...
2026-09-2155 min
High-Impact GrowthGrow the Pie: GiveDirectly's CEO on Absorbing the Third WaveFive years ago, they were mid-level software engineers. Today, they hold giving accounts larger than major foundations — and the sector they want to fund may not be ready to absorb the money. Nick Allardice, CEO of GiveDirectly and former CEO of Change.org, joins Amie and Jonathan to unpack his widely discussed article "The Absorption Problem" and what the "third wave" of philanthropy means for global development. Nick explains why the biggest risk isn't money going to the wrong place, but money sitting on the sidelines for lack of credible places to put it — and why he regularly refers majo...
2026-08-2152 min
High-Impact GrowthFrom Embracing Complexity to Solving the Right ProblemsCould a funder deploy $100 million in global health tomorrow and know where every single dollar went? Dimagi CEO and co-founder Jonathan Jackson believes verified service delivery finally makes the answer yes. In this candid mid-2026 check-in, Jon joins co-host Amie Vaccaro, VP of CommCare Growth and Strategy, to unpack a year of profound change including why Dimagi retired its longtime value "embrace complexity for impact" in favor of "solving the right problems for impact," and what that shift reveals about affordability in a post-USAID funding landscape. Jon walks step-by-step through a single Connect-enabled home visit, from opt-in push notification...
2026-08-1846 min
High-Impact GrowthEric Ries on Why Good Companies Go BadWhat does it really mean to make a profit — and why do so many mission-driven companies eventually betray the very things that made them great? In this episode, Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, joins Amie Vaccaro and Jonathan Jackson to discuss his new book Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric dismantles the conventional definition of profit and offers a radical replacement — profit as the maximization of human flourishing — then explains "financial gravity," the unconscious pull that bends organizations toward the values of whoever holds...
2026-08-0756 min
En el TerrenoDimagiEn 2002, dos estudiantes del MIT, Jonathan Jackson y Vikram Kumar, volaron a Zambia con la intención de usar la informática de la salud para analizar datos, y descubrieron que sencillamente no había datos que analizar. Ese hallazgo hizo que la empresa girara rápidamente de la informática de la salud hacia el desarrollo de software para la salud global: primero crearon herramientas de recolección electrónica para clínicos en hospitales, y hacia 2008 se orientaron hacia un grupo más amplio: los agentes comunitarios de salud que recorren los pueblos y suelen ser el único prove...
2026-08-0514 min
Sur le TerrainDimagiEn 2002, deux étudiants du MIT, Jonathan Jackson et Vikram Kumar, se sont envolés pour la Zambie avec l'intention d'utiliser l'informatique de la santé pour analyser des données — et ont découvert qu'il n'y avait tout simplement aucune donnée à analyser. Cette découverte a rapidement fait pivoter l'entreprise, de l'informatique de la santé vers le développement de logiciels pour la santé mondiale : ils ont d'abord conçu des outils de saisie électronique pour les cliniciens en milieu hospitalier, puis, vers 2008, se sont tournés vers un groupe plus vaste — les agents de santé communautaires qui parcourent les villages et son...
2026-08-0513 min
On the GroundDimagiIn 2002, two MIT students, Jonathan Jackson and Vikram Kumar, flew to Zambia intending to use health informatics to analyze data — and discovered there was no data to analyze at all. That discovery quickly pushed the company from health informatics toward global health software development: they first built electronic data-collection tools for clinicians in hospitals, then around 2008 shifted toward a larger group — community health workers who walk from village to village and are often the only healthcare providers in rural areas.Dimagi's flagship product, CommCare, is a drag-and-drop mobile data-collection and workflow platform built offline-first: workers can enter data...
2026-08-0514 min
在地行动Dimagi2002年，两名麻省理工学院（MIT）学生Jonathan Jackson和Vikram Kumar飞赴赞比亚，本想用健康信息学分析数据，却发现当地根本没有可分析的数据。这个发现让公司迅速从健康信息学转向了全球健康软件开发——先为医院里的临床医生打造电子化数据采集工具，2008年前后转向服务更广大的群体：走村串户、往往是农村地区唯一医疗服务提供者的社区健康工作者。Dimagi的旗舰产品CommCare是一个拖拽式的移动数据采集与工作流平台，核心设计是离线优先——工作者可以在没有网络信号的地方录入数据，回到有信号的地方再自动同步。它从2002年创立起就开源，任何机构都可以免费下载、修改、部署；也正因为开源，赞比亚约2005年建成的国家医疗记录系统后来被其他非洲国家借鉴采用。CommCare的效果在印度、坦桑尼亚、南非的随机对照试验中得到验证（涉及儿童营养、医院分娩率、心血管疾病筛查），另有尼日利亚、危地马拉的相关研究显示积极效果。Dimagi在法律上是一家营利性公司，2008年成为认证B Corp，2012年注册为Benefit Corporation，创始人Jackson称其决策排序是"影响力、团队、利润"。据机构官网自报，Dimagi的软件已被用于130多个国家，累计注册用户超过7600万，九个非洲国家将其定为官方社区健康系统平台，相关同行评审论文超过120篇。近年产品线扩展到结核病服药依从视频监测（SureAdhere）、按实际服务交付付费的Connect市场（2022年由Steele Foundation for Hope投资2500万美元启动，2023年扩展到七国7.7万人），以及AI辅助的营养不良预测和聊天机器人工具。
2026-08-0505 min
High-Impact GrowthThe Last Mile of Family Planning: Lessons from Lafiya in NigeriaIn a single program area in northern Nigeria, contraceptive use climbed from 2% to over 70%. This change wasn't caused by a new technology, but happened because of one new strategy: centering trust. In this episode, Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro sit down with Klau Pakos, CEO and co-founder of Lafiya, to unpack how their organization closes the "last mile" gap in family planning in some of the hardest-to-reach communities in Northern Nigeria. Women in these communities often already know about contraception, but too often travel hours to a clinic only to be turned away empty-handed. Lafiya's answer is the Lafiya...
2026-07-3042 min
High-Impact GrowthWhy Development Needs More Innovation, Not Less with DIV FundWhen USAID was dissolved, Sasha Gallant didn't let the work she'd spent years building disappear with it. As the former head of Development Innovation Ventures (DIV), USAID's evidence-driven innovation fund, Gallant watched stop-work orders freeze over 100 active awards overnight. Rather than let that portfolio die, she did two things: Helped mobilize more than $130 million to keep the most critical, life-saving USAID projects alive through an initiative called Project Resource Optimization, and Co-founded DIV as an independent nonprofit–the DIV Fund–to test and scale new, potentially cost-effective global development innovations.In this conversation with c...
2026-07-2349 min
High-Impact GrowthWho Actually Owns This? Naming What's Broken with Nithya RamanathanWhat does it actually take for a country, government, or community to truly own a technology or an outcome? In this fast-paced and candid episode of High-Impact Growth, Dimagi CEO Jonathan Jackson and co-host Amie Vaccaro welcome back Nithya Ramanathan, CEO and co-founder of Nexleaf Analytics. Moving past polite sector rhetoric, Nithya and Jonathan break down why so many well-intentioned global health initiatives end up in "equipment graveyards" due to a broken "donor-to-hope" value chain. Grounded in her recent Stanford Social Innovation Review piece on country ownership, Nithya unpacks the three critical ingredients of true ownership—financial transaction, genuine co...
2026-06-2648 min
High-Impact Growth40,000 Health Workers, One AI-Powered LifelineWhat happens when a health extension worker in rural Ethiopia faces a complex case and there's no doctor nearby? This episode goes beyond the AI hype cycle to explore a live, working answer: HEP Assist, a generative AI-powered call center built for Ethiopia's 40,000 health extension workers by Last Mile Health, IDinsight, and the Ethiopian Ministry of Health.Abraham Zerihun, Ethiopia Country Director at Last Mile Health, and Sid Ravinutala, Chief Data Scientist at IDinsight, take us inside the real decisions — from choosing a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architecture to stay within Ministry guidelines and reduce hallucinations, to creating a...
2026-05-1549 min
High-Impact GrowthClosing the Gap: Scaling Mental Health Care Through Local Heroes with Pavel ReppoImagine a country of 50 million people with only 50 psychiatrists. This staggering treatment gap is the reality in Uganda, but Pavel Reppo is proving that specialized experts aren’t the only ones who can provide life-changing care. As the Executive Director of Finemind and CEO of Matchbox Fund, Pavel brings a rare dual perspective to the conversation, bridging the worlds of grassroots mental health implementation and trust-based philanthropy.In this episode, we dive into how Finemind upskills primary health workers—such as midwives and nurses—to deliver evidence-based mental health support at the point of care. Pavel explains why tr...
2026-04-1550 min
High-Impact GrowthThinking About Individual Giving? Start HereAs traditional funding sources shift, many nonprofits are asking a hard question: can individual giving become a meaningful and sustainable revenue stream? In this episode of High-Impact Growth, Amie Vaccaro and Jonathan Jackson sit down with Javan Van Gronigen, founder of Donate.ly, to unpack what it truly takes to make that transition work.Drawing from more than a decade in digital fundraising, Javan shares why storytelling—not technology—is the most critical asset nonprofits have, and why so many organizations struggle by committing “random acts of marketing.” The conversation explores how to move from one-to-one fundraising toward s...
2026-02-2045 min
High-Impact GrowthBeyond “AI for Good”: Building Responsible AIAI is moving fast in global health and development, but good intentions alone don’t guarantee good outcomes. In this episode of High-Impact Growth, we sit down with Genevieve Smith, Founding Director of the Responsible AI Initiative at UC Berkeley’s AI Research Lab, to unpack what it really means to build and deploy AI responsibly in contexts that matter most.Drawing on a decade of experience in international development and cutting-edge research on AI bias, Genevieve explains why labeling a project “AI for good” isn’t enough. She introduces five critical lenses – fairness, privacy, security, transparency, and accountab...
2026-01-2250 min
High-Impact Growth[Pods Fight Poverty Re-Air] How GiveDirectly is Changing AidToday’s episode is a re-air in support of Pods Fight Poverty, a campaign from our friends at GiveDirectly. You can learn more and donate at: GiveDirectly.org/DimagiUpdate: You can learn about the impact of this campaign here.—-In this episode, we’re joined by Stella Luk, Regional Director at GiveDirectly, and Erin Quinn, Dimagi’s Senior Director of Customer Success, to explore a fundamental question: What if, instead of aid programs deciding what communities need, we simply gave people cash and trusted them to make the best choices for themselv...
2025-12-1842 min
High-Impact GrowthThe Thinking You Can't Skip: AI for Good at a CrossroadsIn part four of our AI for Good series, hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro reconnect with Brian DeRenzi, Dimagi's VP of AI and Research, to explore how AI is evolving—and what it still can't do. Since our last conversation, technology has made staggering leaps, but the global health sector has also been rocked by funding cuts, creating massive tension between potential and reality.Brian shares why AI accelerates human intention but can never replace critical thinking. And we dig into Dimagi's research on hidden bias in frontier models and AI’s performance in low resource lang...
2025-11-1353 min
High-Impact GrowthA Radical Bet on Simplicity and AffordabilityIn early 2025, massive funding cuts from USAID sent shockwaves through the global development sector, leaving many to wonder what would come next. The money was gone, but the problems remained. In this follow-up conversation, Dimagi Managing Directors Gillian Javetski and Ismaïla Diene rejoin the podcast to discuss the aftermath and the unexpected "diamonds" created from the pressure. They share how the crisis forced a pivot from large, custom-built projects to a new model centered on radical simplicity, focus, and affordability. This candid discussion explores the divergence happening among digital public goods, the necessity of sustainable business models, and w...
2025-10-0948 min
High-Impact GrowthLeading Through Chaos: Jayson Morris on Grief, Healing, and Emergent LeadershipWhat happens when the leadership skills that once fueled success no longer serve in today’s climate of uncertainty? In this episode of High Impact Growth, leadership coach Jayson Morris returns for a candid conversation with Dimagi CEO Jonathan Jackson and host Amie Vaccaro. Together, they explore how leaders can navigate grief, anger, and fear while still showing up with authenticity and resilience.Jayson unpacks the idea of the “leader as healer,” the power of embracing emergence over rigid strategic plans, and why slowing down can actually help teams move faster. You’ll also hear honest reflections on burno...
2025-09-2254 min
High-Impact GrowthCash, Choice and Dignity: How GiveDirectly is Changing AidIn this episode, we’re joined by Stella Luk, Regional Director at GiveDirectly, and Erin Quinn, Dimagi’s Senior Director of Customer Success, to explore a fundamental question: What if, instead of aid programs deciding what communities need, we simply gave people cash and trusted them to make the best choices for themselves?GiveDirectly has pioneered direct, unconditional cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty, challenging long-held assumptions about traditional aid. Stella shares powerful insights from the field—how cash empowers recipients with dignity, choice, and long-term impact. We also discuss the skepticism surrounding cash transfers, the eviden...
2025-04-2340 minHigh-Impact GrowthCash, Choice and Dignity: How GiveDirectly is Changing AidIn this episode, we’re joined by Stella Luk, Regional Director at GiveDirectly, and Erin Quinn, Dimagi’s Senior Director of Customer Success, to explore a fundamental question: What if, instead of aid programs deciding what communities need, we simply gave people cash and trusted them to make the best choices for themselves?GiveDirectly has pioneered direct, unconditional cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty, challenging long-held assumptions about traditional aid. Stella shares powerful insights from the field—how cash empowers recipients with dignity, choice, and long-term impact. We also discuss the skepticism surrounding cash transfers, the eviden...
2025-04-1840 min
High-Impact GrowthThe People and Planet Parts of Running a “Sustainable” CompanyIn this episode, hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro are joined by two leaders on Dimagi’s People Operations team – Emily Gutman and Molly Broderick – to delve into what it takes to run Dimagi in a way that’s sustainable for its employees and the planet.. From reimagining performance management systems to demystifying the complexities of climate neutrality, they offer an unfiltered look at the challenges of navigating sustainability in the corporate world. Topics include:The role of frameworks in supporting sustainability Becoming a certified Benefit CorporationHow and why Dimagi became Cli...
2025-03-2034 min
High-Impact GrowthThe Future of Aid: Adapting to a Changing Funding LandscapeThe landscape of international aid is shifting rapidly, leaving organizations and communities facing unprecedented challenges. In this episode, hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro are joined by Gillian Javetski, Managing Director of Dimagi’s Software-as-a-Service division, and Ismaïla Diene, Managing Director of Dimagi's Solutions division, to unpack the impact of massive funding cuts on global health and development efforts.What does it mean when critical aid funding disappears overnight? How are frontline organizations adapting to continue their life-saving work? And how is Dimagi stepping up to support partners in this time of uncertainty?Join us...
2025-03-0734 minHigh-Impact GrowthBuilding SaaS Products for Global Health: Lessons from CommCare & SureAdhereIn this episode, Dimagi product leaders Danny Roberts, Kai Cowger, and Matthew Hayto delve into the challenges and opportunities of building SaaS products for global health. This insightful conversation explores transitioning from donor-driven funding to a product-driven model, focusing on user needs, product sustainability, and scaling for impact. The episode highlights the complexity of aligning revenue and impact in resource-constrained settings, the importance of product marketing, and the lessons learned from scaling solutions like CommCare and SureAdhere. Tune in to discover practical strategies for creating technology that drives meaningful, lasting change in global health.
2024-12-1951 minHigh-Impact GrowthFrom Extractive Data Collection to Inclusive Data Sharing: Nora Lindström on the Evolution of ICT4DIn this episode, Nora Lindström, Senior Director of ICT4D at Catholic Relief Services (CRS), and Erin Quinn, Senior Director of Customer Success at Dimagi join the podcast to discuss the evolving role of the iNGO in the context of localization and advancing local leadership, the intersection of technology and localization in global development, and the ways that technologists in global development can center the people we serve in our work. In the conversation, we learn Nora’s journey and insights into the transformative power of technology in global development. From empowering local communities with data to navigating the...
2024-11-2759 minHigh-Impact GrowthThe Strategic Role of Data Management in Cure Violence Global’s WorkIn this episode of High-Impact Growth, hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro talk with Dr. Charles Elliott, Director of Data Management at Cure Violence Global (CVG), an organization using a public health approach to prevent violence. Dr. Elliott shares insights into how CVG views violence like an epidemic, applying data-driven methods to map and reduce violence in communities around the world.
Dr. Elliott articulates the value of a thoughtful data strategy using a tool like CommCare to measure and track critical indicators such as violence interruption, behavior change, and norm change. Dr. Elliott highlights that for Cure V...
2024-10-1753 minHigh-Impact GrowthImproving Health Worker Jobs to Improve Outcomes with CommCare ConnectIn this episode of High Impact Growth hosts Amie Vaccaro and Jonathan Jackson, dive into one of Dimagi’s most ambitious and potentially transformative projects to date, CommCare Connect. This platform is designed to improve the jobs of community health workers (CHWs) by equipping them with digital tools to learn new skills, deliver health services, verify their work, and, crucially, get paid for additional work. By doing so, CommCare Connect seeks to address some of the biggest challenges in the global health space, such as the underpayment and disempowerment of CHWs and funding wasted on digital tools that don’t su...
2024-09-131h 02High-Impact GrowthFinancing Community Health Programs with Africa Frontline FirstIn today’s conversation, co-hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro are joined by Nan Chen, Co-Executive Director of Africa Frontline First. Africa Frontline First is on a mission to increase financing for community health worker programs across Africa to save and improve lives. Half of the world's population lack access to essential health services and community health workers, who expand primary health services door-to-door even in the hardest to reach communities, are an essential part of the solution. But financing remains the primary challenge to scale and sustain community health worker programs, despite a 10:1 return on investment. Today’s conv...
2024-08-2951 minHigh-Impact GrowthBuilding Tech Products that Matter in a Broken MarketDr. Kelly Collins and Gillian Javetski join co-hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro for a candid conversation about the market for digital health products.
Kelly returned from the World Health Assembly with a burning question: How can we teach global health to buy software as a commodity, the same way they might buy drugs or diagnostic tools? How might we peel back the influence of aid and donor funds on digital health so that we can build tech products for global health that matter?
In this conversation, Gillian, Kelly and Jonathan each share their approaches...
2024-08-1547 minHigh-Impact GrowthHarnessing Somatic Intelligence: Tools and Practices for Leading in UncertaintyJayson Morris, Jonathan’s coach, joins the podcast for a candid dialogue on the challenges of social enterprise leadership amidst increasing uncertainty. Jayson shares his journey from investment banking to international development and eventually to coaching, highlighting his experience with burnout and neuroadrenal fatigue. He emphasizes the importance of tapping into the body’s innate wisdom and using tools like the Enneagram and self-compassion to support leadership. The discussion emphasizes how somatic awareness can help leaders manage stress, build trust and presence, and lead teams through complex challenges. Jonathan and Amie share their experiences with incorporating somatic techniques into thei...
2024-07-231h 02High-Impact GrowthWhat’s New in AI: Equity-enhancing use cases and Open Chat StudioIn Part 3 in our series on AI, Brian DeRenzi, head of Dimagi's research and data team, joins Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro to discuss how advances in AI can affect global health and development. They discuss AI's rapid evolution, practical applications, and the importance of thoughtful implementation to avoid a future where only the privileged benefit. The discussion covers Dimagi's focus on equitable AI through direct-to-client work, how AI can support health workers, and Dimagi’s new bot building and testing platform, Open Chat Studio.
Discussion points:
AI Evolution: Exploring the rapid adv...
2024-06-1343 minHigh-Impact GrowthSystem Catalysts: Why are Thousands of Donated Organs Thrown Away Each Year?Today we are sharing an episode from a podcast we think you'll enjoy. System Catalysts is about the incredible people who are fixing the broken systems that run the world.
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Are you an organ donor? If yes, good for you! But you should know that your organs might not reach the person who needs them. That’s because the organ donation system is a mess, leading to over a dozen preventable deaths daily. Thankfully, our guests today – Greg Segal of Organize and Jennifer Erickson of Federation of American Scientists – tell us about how they discove...
2024-05-2228 minHigh-Impact GrowthSolve One Problem: From vision to global impact with Chesca Colloredo-Mansfeld, Co-Founder of MiracleFeetOne in 800 babies are born with clubfoot, a treatable birth impairment that left untreated prevents a child from walking, and becomes the root cause for illiteracy, abuse, malnutrition, and poverty in many parts of the world. Clubfoot is routinely treated at birth in high income countries, but historically children born in low and middle income countries have not had access to quality treatment. Today, co-hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro sit down with Chesca Colloredo-Mansfeld, co-founder of MiracleFeet to hear about how she and her team have dedicated themselves to making a simple, cost-effective treatment for clubfoot available to...
2024-05-131h 20High-Impact GrowthFrom I to We: Trust, Co-Creation and Ego in Social Innovation with Jeroo BillimoriaCo-hosts, Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro are joined by Jeroo Billimoria, a remarkable serial social entrepreneur. Starting at age 12, Jeroo has founded several impactful organizations, including Child and Youth Finance International, Aflatoun, Childline India Foundation and Catalyst 2030. In this candid conversation we learn about her journey and discuss:
Solving for root cause problems
Creating impactful outcomes through co-creation and collaboration
Building collective ownership and trust
Letting go of ego and planning for organizational transition
Managing the relational and management aspects of scaling an organization and a movement
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2024-05-0356 minHigh-Impact GrowthGlasswing International: Empowering Communities through Mental Health Care and Leveraging Technology for Lasting ImpactGlasswing International is a NGO with a remarkable journey, having impacted more than 2.2 million lives through their education and health initiatives throughout Latin America and New York City. Co-founder and President Celina de Sola shares her insights on the organization's evolution and growth to 600 employees, and their community-driven approach that led to the organization's non-clinical model for mental health care. The podcast explores scalability, sustainability, and the role of technology and data in highlighting growth as well as the gaps, to enable organizations to achieve greater impact.
2024-03-1240 minHigh-Impact GrowthEmpowering Healthcare Access: How the US Digital Service at CMS is shaping policies and creating an equitable digital futureIn this insightful podcast episode, we feature guests Andrea Fletcher, Chief Digital Strategy Officer, and Remy DeCausemaker, Open Source Lead at the Digital Service at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), discussing the critical role of digital technology in shaping healthcare strategies within the U.S. government. The discussion delves into the intersections of technology, healthcare, and government strategies, emphasizing the significance of open source collaboration, addressing challenges, and preparing for the future of healthcare systems. Hear fresh perspectives on AI, privacy-enhancing technologies, and the importance of AI transparency in policies.
2024-01-2247 minHigh-Impact GrowthEquity and AI in Global Health: leveraging AI to benefit underserved populations and dispel Inequitable DystopiaIn part 2 of this series on Artificial Intelligence, Jonathan Jackson and Brian DeRenzi, Dimagi’s Research and Data team lead, openly talk about the rapid evolution of AI, its vast potential, and what Dimagi has been up to over the last few months since winning the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges grant to build a frontline worker coaching chatbot. In this candid conversation, they discuss the value of collaboration, the ethical and philosophical considerations of AI as a tool to empower, rather than replace human services, the looming threat of inequitable dystopia and ways that we are pa...
2023-12-1836 minHigh-Impact GrowthCategory Design and why it matters for Global Health and Development Organizations engaged in Breakthrough WorkOur co-hosts are joined by thirteen-time #1 bestselling co-author and pioneer in Category Design, Chris Lochead, to discuss Category Design, and how it's relevant for NGOs and social impact organizations. He delves into the fundamentals while offering insights on how to shift from the current competitive state to a new, transformative future. This episode is brimming with compelling story examples such as the women's labor movement and its powerful tagline of “equal pay for equal work”. He also shares a personal anecdote about a home-based climate change response in Santa Cruz, where he employed out-of-the-box thinking to get multiple stakeholders to b...
2023-11-2054 minHigh-Impact GrowthReimagining Tuberculosis Treatment and Care: Putting People at the Center of Tech Innovation with Jackie HuhSTOP TB has an ambitious objective driving the RTC initiative: ending global tuberculosis epidemic by 2030. In this episode, we talk about the innovative efforts taken by STOP TB's Reimagining TB Care initiative, addressing the intricate challenges of combating tuberculosis through comprehensive 360-degree, people-centered approach.
Our guest speaker, Jackie Huh from Stop TB, will share insights on her initiative "Reminagining TB Care" and discuss the importance of putting people at the center of technology innovations. Within this context, we explore the core objectives of RTC, gaining valuable insight into the notable advancements achieved thus far, obstacles faced & strategies RTC...
2023-10-2346 minHigh-Impact GrowthEnabling and Elevating Community Health Workers across the US: Insights from MHP Salud’s Impact Delivery Approach to TechnologyCo-hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro are joined by MHP Salud’s CEO, Dr. Maggie Dante and Data and Evaluation Analyst, Rachel Udow. MHP Salud is championing Community Health Workers across the US both within their organization and through training and consulting on how to best integrate CHW programs. Over the last decade, MHP Salud has been on a digital transformation journey - leveraging technology to improve service delivery. The conversation unpacks many of the best practices the organization has developed to leverage digital to deliver impact at scale.
Topics discussed:How MHP Salud has used on...
2023-09-1856 minHigh-Impact GrowthIntroducing Impact Delivery: Raising the Bar for Digital In Global Health & DevelopmentSocial impact organizations and governments worldwide are under immense pressure to do more with less. We are confronting an array of complex, constantly-evolving pressures ranging from economic uncertainty, humanitarian crises, inflation, pandemics, and climate change. All of this means we need to deliver more services to more people. And, we often need to do it with flat or decreasing levels of funding.
Digital solutions have the potential to help us do more with less, to create more value for every dollar invested. But most digital transformations either fail outright, or fail to create this sustained value.
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2023-09-0436 minHigh-Impact GrowthFrom Skepticism to Scale: Lessons from Friendship Bench with Dr. Dixon ChibandaDr. Dixon Chibanda started Friendship Bench after losing a patient to suicide who could not afford to travel to the hospital in Zimbabwe where he worked. There had to be a way to make mental health care more accessible. Today, Friendship Bench has a team of grandmothers across Zimbabwe who are trained to deliver evidence-based high-impact therapy on park benches, making mental health support readily available. In this episode, Jonathan Jackson learns about the incredible journey of the Friendship Bench intervention in conversation with its Founder and CEO, Dr. Dixon Chibanda. Get a behind the scenes look at how t...
2023-08-2140 minHigh-Impact GrowthEthiopia’s Digitization Journey: The Path to Paperless with Dr. Girma TadesseDiscover the key ingredients to Ethiopia's incredible progress in digital health as Ali Flaming and Amie Vaccaro speak with Dr. Girma Tadesse, electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS) Project Manager with JSI. Stemming from a clear vision for improving health outcomes and data use, the Ethiopian government has been on a digital health transformation journey starting in 1991. As Project Manager for this effort, Dr. Girma shares Ethiopia’s journey moving towards a fully paperless system. You’ll hear how with government ownership and strategic resource allocation, they're establishing a strong foundation for long-term success, while also investing in the peopl...
2023-08-091h 10High-Impact GrowthHow the proCHW movement can enable quality care for all with Dr. Madeleine BallardRediscover the power of community health workers (CHWs) and their critical role in delivering healthcare globally in this captivating conversation with Jonathan Jackson and Dr. Madeleine Ballard, CEO of the Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC). Despite concrete evidence that CHWs work, millions are not salaried, skilled, supervised and supplied. The WHO recommends remunerating CHWs for their work but 86% of CHWs in Africa are not salaried. And worldwide, CHWs face essential medicine stock-outs 1/3 of the time. CHIC is a coalition of thousands of CHWs and aligned health organizations in 40+ countries who are making professional CHWs (proCHWs) the norm by changing gu...
2023-07-2544 minHigh-Impact GrowthToo Valuable to Fail | Your Questions AnsweredTesting out a new format for this podcast - short form responses to questions from you, our audience. Plus video!
In this Your Questions Answered episode, we break down a recent learning that Jonathan Jackson shared on LinkedIn regarding working with governments on digital health programs:
“I used to think the goal with digital health programs as a technology partner was to get too big to fail. I’ve learned a lot however in the last 20 years. Now I know: the only path to success is to be too valuable to fail.”
We discuss...
2023-07-1415 minHigh-Impact GrowthScaling mental health care: Exploring the intersection of mental health, physical health, human connection & technologyDepression alone is projected to be the third leading cause of disease burden in lower and middle income countries by 2030, where 75% of people don't receive any treatment.
In this episode we delve into the escalating global issue of mental health care. Jonathan Jackson speaks with three of Dimagi’s experts: senior health strategy specialist Lauren Magoun, senior project analyst Anaba Sunday Atua, and senior mental health strategy consultant Christie Civetta. Gain insights from the team’s diverse experience and learnings in project analysis and the implementation of mental health initiatives, as well as approaches to combating the barr...
2023-07-1043 minHigh-Impact GrowthEmpowering TB Patients through Technology: The SureAdhere ImpactIn this episode, we discuss technology's impactful role in making services accessible, specifically in the treatment of Tuberculosis (TB). Listen as Chris Buri, a TB survivor and patient advocate, shares his experience with TB treatment and the importance of patient support and advocacy in TB care. You’ll also hear about his personal journey of resilience and advocacy, the challenges and opportunities presented by TB treatment, and the potential of technology such as VDOT (Video Directly Observed Therapy) to improve patient outcomes. This is a great listen for those wanting to learn more about the impact of TB on pat...
2023-06-2825 minHigh-Impact GrowthTaking New Technology from Research to Commercial Scale: The SureAdhere Story with Dr. Richard Garfein and Dr. Kelly CollinsIn this episode we chat to renowned epidemiologist, healthcare innovator, and educator Dr. Richard Garfein and social entrepreneur and infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Kelly Collins, as they share their journey of turning an idea from research in academia into a successful commercial enterprise. They discuss their experiences in starting SureAdhere, licensing the software from UCSD, and signing up health departments to use the technology. You’ll also hear about their work in using Video Directly Observed therapy (VDOT) to transform tuberculosis (TB) treatment, and how they expanded their company's reach to cover diseases from hepatitis C to opioid use di...
2023-06-1945 minHigh-Impact GrowthReimagining global mental health care with a person-centered, digitally-enabled approach with Dr. Vikram Patel, successor to Paul Farmer at Harvard Medical School“There is no health without mental health.” - Dr. Vikram Patel
Dr. Vikram Patel is a psychiatrist, professor, renowned researcher, co-founder of Sangath, in India, and the incoming chair of Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine where he takes over for the late Dr. Paul Farmer. Through decades of field-defining research, Dr Patel has shown how community-based resources can meet a growing burden of mental illness globally. In this episode, we explore Dr. Patel’s journey from training as a psychiatrist in London to working in Zimbabwe and co-founding Sangath - an award-winning Indian...
2023-06-1248 minHigh-Impact GrowthHow Community Health Workers Shaped the Creation of CommCare, the Platform for Impactful Frontline Work with Gayo MhilaDimagi’s CommCare platform has been shaped by its users since its inception. Today, we revisit some of the first Community Health Workers who helped design and test CommCare back in 2008 in Tanzania. Co-host Amie Vaccaro speaks with two people who led that early research – Gayo Mhila, who has recently interviewed 5 of the earliest users, and Dr. Brian DeRenzi, Dimagi's Global Director of Research. Through the conversation you’ll learn how technology can enable CHW’s to provide vital support to their communities, and how CHW input helped shape essential functionality of CommCare marking the genesis of Dimagi’s Design Unde...
2023-06-0538 minHigh-Impact GrowthChampioning a Movement to Pay and Professionalize Community Health Workers with Margaret OderaIn this episode we explore the journey of Margaret Odera, a Community Health Worker and mentor mother in Kenya. Following her HIV diagnosis, Margaret received life-changing support from a mentor mother, which inspired her to dedicate her life to helping other HIV-positive mothers and their newborns. As the founder of the Community Health Workers Champions Network (CHWCN), Margaret is also leading the charge to professionalize and amplify the voices of these unsung heroes in the health sector. We discuss the role of Community Health Workers in disease prevention and health promotion; the need for better tools, technology, and training, a...
2023-05-2946 minHigh-Impact GrowthBuilding Resilience: The Key to Combating Burnout in Frontline Workers with Lilianna BagnoliIn a world where stress is inevitable, burnout is rife, and the global mental health burden is growing, it's crucial to develop the skill of resilience to recover, adapt, and grow from stress. This episode highlights how building resilience can guard against burnout, a workplace phenomenon that affects many Frontline Workers, resulting in feelings of fatigue, detachment, and a reduction in professional efficacy. Jonathan Jackson sits down with Lilianna Bagnoli to dig into Dimagi’s work on resilience-building through the launch of the WellMe application - a user-friendly tool focussed on equipping Frontline Workers with resilience-building behaviors, that can be...
2023-05-2242 minHigh-Impact GrowthEquity and AI in Global Health: Exploring Large Language Models, Building Chatbots and Embracing DiscomfortJonathan Jackson sits down with Brian DeRenzi, Dimagi’s Research and Data team lead, to discuss Dimagi’s work exploring large language models to create chatbots for global health and development use cases. They discuss how we might leverage AI to advance equity despite the reality that it can also decrease equity, while recognizing the irreplaceable value of human-to-human connection in healthcare. We also discuss the potential of ChatGPT to support more accessible SMS workflows, how voice to text can support non-literate populations, and how to embrace the discomfort of this moment in a way that propels us towards creat...
2023-05-1535 minHigh-Impact GrowthA New Era for Development with Raj Kumar of Devex: Shifting from a Project Mindset to an Investment MindsetGlobal development is evolving quickly in the face of social, economic, and political changes. Jonathan Jackson sits down with Raj Kumar, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Devex, a leading independent online news platform for development professionals, to discuss how 2023 marks the start of a new, more challenging development era. With growing competition between China and Russia and the West, a new set of economic circumstances, and overwhelming humanitarian needs, development professionals need to get more value for money. And this requires a change in mindset and how things are done - shifting from a project-based mindset to a collaborative, results-driven...
2023-05-0852 minHigh-Impact GrowthUndersupported, Unrecognized and Vital: 3 Community Health Workers supported by Lwala Community Alliance Speak OutJonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro sit down with three Community Health Workers, supported by the Lwala Community Alliance, as they share first-hand their journey into community health, their day-to-day, the impact of digital tools on their work, and the importance of salaried Community Health Workers in creating greater access to critical health services worldwide. This is part 2 in a two-part series on the important work Lwala Community Alliance is doing in transforming the community health landscape in Kenya. A must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the important work of Community Health Workers.
Some topics covered in this...
2023-05-0131 minHigh-Impact GrowthThe Four Pillars of Community-Led Health: Insights from Julius Mbeya, Co-CEO at Lwala Community AllianceJonathan 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 Alliance is doing in transforming the community health landscape in Kenya. A must-listen for anyone interested in innovative digital approaches to healthcare to effect lasting impact.
Some topics covered in this conversation include:
A breakdown of Lw...
2023-04-2525 minHigh-Impact GrowthReducing health inequities through digital innovation with Olukunle Akinwusi of FIND & Erica Troncoso of Jhpiego: Dispatches from the Global Digital Health Forum 2022Jonathan 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 literacy of the Frontline Worker, and engaging country stakeholders to ensure buy-in.
Some topics covered in this conversation include:
The importance of diagnostics in improving access to care and curbing disease prevalence
Addressing t...
2023-04-1715 minHigh-Impact GrowthBuilding digital as a horizontal foundation: Insights from growing Dimagi's marketing teamIn 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 often see digital projects failing when they are focused on one specific vertical or silo and not able to add value across an organization. Amie has been on a parallel journey building marketing as a hor...
2023-04-0338 minHigh-Impact GrowthReflections on Starting this PodcastHigh-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 choosing a co-host to creating the space for your podcast to evolve
Key podcasting tools to consider when starting out (including Descript, Riverside and Anchor.fm which is now Spotify f...
2023-03-2817 minHigh-Impact GrowthHow to double the impact of your team with Liz Wiseman, author of MultipliersJonathan 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 topics covered in this conversation include:
A breakdown of the Multipliers leadership style and how to utilize it within any team environment to create 2x the impact
Multipliers vs Diminishers vs Accidental Diminishers- where does yo...
2023-03-1544 minHigh-Impact GrowthPrioritizing better jobs for Frontline Workers in the digital health community with Jonathan Jackson: Dispatches from the 2022 Global Digital Health ForumJonathan 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 conversation include:
Why supporting and elevating the Frontline Worker is critical to the future of the digital health community (and Dimagi’s 5 year strategy)
What would adding a 10th Principle for Digital...
2023-03-0611 minHigh-Impact GrowthMeeting the Need for Global Mental Health Care with Digital featuring Lauren Magoun: Dispatches from the Global Digital Health ForumJonathan 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 in this conversation include:
Enabling non-specialist frontline providers to provide mental health care
The power in taking a protocolized approach to mental health treatment
An exploration of the ways that we can leverage dig...
2023-02-2720 minHigh-Impact GrowthHow will advances in AI impact global health and development with Clayton Sims: Dispatches from the Global Digital Health Forum 2022Jonathan 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, image processing, biometrics, diagnostics, chatbots, and threat detection.
How AI tools can create more autonomy and expand the skillsets of an individual
Looking at ChatGPT training data and structures, and the impact of minimal global vetting on the global dev...
2023-02-2022 minHigh-Impact GrowthPartnering with the government to improve maternal health with Nick Pearson and Sathy Rajasekharan of Jacaranda Health: Dispatches from the 2022 Global Digital Health ForumJonathan 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 partnering with governments to support gaps in maternal and newborn care
Maximizing impact by improving communication with moms through a digital platform called Prompts
Scaling capacity & exploring peer learning through a mentorship program for healthcare providers
Amplifying th...
2023-02-1322 minHigh-Impact GrowthCreating a Digital Ecosystem to Improve Frontline Humanitarian Impact: Mercy Corps’ Approach to Monitoring, Evaluation and LearningJonathan 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 covered in this conversation include:
The difference between M&E and MEL
The value of a MEL policy and the challenges of disorganized MEL technology
How standardizing on technology for MEL allows teams to maxi...
2023-02-0648 minHigh-Impact GrowthAdvocating for Frontline Workers at Davos: Reflections from a Social Entrepreneur after the World Economic ForumJonathan 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 role at Davos
The reality of the state of ‘poly crisis’ - multiple complex crises that a lot of organizations are facing currently
The increasing scope of social entrepreneurship and social...
2023-02-0221 minHigh-Impact GrowthUnlocking the Potential of AI in Public Health with Rebecca Distler of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation: Dispatches from the 2022 Global Digital Health ForumJonathan 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 between short- and long-term thinking
Uncovering effective entry points for building digital public infrastructure
Putting the person at the center of health systems, not their disease
Exploring "medical AI" vs "public health AI" and...
2023-01-3028 minHigh-Impact GrowthTaking a whole-of-government approach to digital health in Zambia with Innocent Chiboma from the Zambian Ministry of Health: Dispatches from the 2022 Global Digital Health Forum“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 sector.” - Innocent Chiboma, Principal ICT Officer for Digital Health, Ministry of Health of Zambia
Jonathan Jackson talks to Innocent Chiboma, Principal ICT Officer for Digital Health at the Za...
2023-01-2318 minHigh-Impact GrowthEmbrace complexity for impact: Articulating Dimagi’s culture and values with Lucina Tse, Gillian Javetski, Avni Singhal and Simon Kelly (Part 4)“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 scale programs, there’s a high likelihood half of them are canceled or put on pause or, or are never picked up again for reasons completely outside of our control. But the next tim...
2023-01-1614 minHigh-Impact GrowthMust-Listen Guidance for Technologists in Global Health from Malawi’s Head of Digital Health, Simeon Yosefe: Dispatches from the 2022 Global Digital Health Forum“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 has TB - all these will actually be taken care of because we have brought all this work together and those who are providing the care will actually pr...
2023-01-0920 minHigh-Impact GrowthEvolve by learning and sharing openly: Articulating Dimagi’s culture and values with Lucina Tse, Gillian Javetski, Avni Singhal and Simon Kelly (part 3)“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 through our partners.” - Avni Singhal
“Another thing that it brings to mind is learning from our failures. And I think that's another thing that can be quite un...
2022-12-1914 minHigh-Impact GrowthLead with empathy and respect: Articulating Dimagi’s culture and values with Lucina Tse, Gillian Javetski, Avni Singhal and Simon Kelly (part 2)“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 CEO
Co-hosts Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro are joined by fellow Dimagi team members - Lucina Tse, Chief Operating Officer, Gillian Javetski, Chief of Staff, Avni Singhal, Senior Customer Success Manager...
2022-12-1215 minHigh-Impact GrowthNick Martin of TechChange on Training, Content, and the Evolution and Maturation of Digital Health: Dispatches from the 2022 Global Digital Health ForumJonathan 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 matured from conversations about “How do we successfully deploy a digital health pilot” to “how do we support digital health” which has now become a given.
Connecting the dots for digital health - how do minis...
2022-12-0622 min
High-Impact GrowthBe bold but humble: Articulating Dimagi’s culture and values with Lucina Tse, Gillian Javetski, Avni Singhal and Simon Kelly (part 1)“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 boldness…At the same time, we don’t know if we’re right, and we have failed a lot over the last 20 years, ad we expect to fail a wh...
2022-11-2916 minHigh-Impact GrowthBringing Global Health Best Practices to US Public Health Response: Entering the US Market to Meet the Needs of COVID-19 with Carter Powers, Sarah Sagan and Lily Olson“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 healthcare in the United States…we had a front row seat to what was a really devastating and also a really important moment in US history...
2022-10-2452 minHigh-Impact GrowthThe Journey to Scale: Lessons learned from supporting the largest digitally-enabled Frontline Worker program in the world with Kriti Mehrotra, Shayoni Mazumdar and Stella Luk“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 2018, the Common Application Software (ICDS CAS) helped tackle malnutrition by digitally equipping Frontline Workers with a mobile solution to strengthen service delivery and enable effective monitoring, timely interventions, and enhanced decision support...
2022-10-1357 minHigh-Impact GrowthTakeaways from the 77th United Nations General Assembly: Breaking Down Silos, Supporting the Global Fund’s 7th Replenishment, and Unpacking Global Development’s Talent Gap with Dr. Kelly CollinsWhat 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.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PEPFAR-Strategic-Direction_FINAL.pdf
Dimagi’s 5 Year Strategy: https://dimagi.com/blog/dimagis-5-year-strategy/
Global Fund Replenishment: https://www.devex.co...
2022-09-2840 minHigh-Impact GrowthFailure is Not Free: Maximizing Learning Velocity with Funding from USAID Development Innovation Ventures with Kriti Mehrotra, Jeremy Wacksman and Sri Ranganathan"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 organization. So I think we do need to have that mindset, but also realize...you can't just fail for free." - Jonathan Jackson
Today's episode is part 3 in a...
2022-09-2654 minHigh-Impact GrowthDimagi’s Big Break: Receiving Instrumental Core Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with Tim Wood, Former Senior Program OfficerTim 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 technology that breaks the mold of the industry’s tendency to invest in projects rather than core technology. In this episode, Jonathan Jackson and Tim Wood tell the story of how that investment happened, why it was so im...
2022-09-1252 minHigh-Impact GrowthSolving Hard Problems, Designing Under the Mango Tree, and Taking a Product Approach: Lessons Learned from the Making of CommCare featuring Dr. Brian DeRenzi, Clayton Sims, Cory Zue and Dr. Neal LeshJonathan 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 countries. The journey to create CommCare spans 14 years and is quite unusual: it's a story of tenacity, humility and continuous learning first and foremost from our users. You'll hear from Dr. Neal Lesh, Dimagi's Chief Strategy Officer, Dr...
2022-08-291h 07High-Impact GrowthOut-collaborating vs Out-competing: The Secret to Making Progress on Complex International Development Challenges with Gillian JavetskiJonathan Jackson and Gillian Javetski, Dimagi’s Chief of Staff, discuss why it’s imperative in international development and global health to collaborate vs compete. We unpack fundamental lessons about collaboration gleaned over the last few decades at Dimagi. You’ll learn: What distinguishes good collaboration from bad collaboration? What makes an exceptional collaborator? How has Dimagi developed a collaborative culture? And despite that, why have people called Dimagi uncollaborative? Why is it so important to be selfish when it comes to collaboration on shared impact? When should you re-evaluate a collaboration? And, when should you decline a meeting?
...
2022-08-1532 minHigh-Impact GrowthWhy Improving Frontline Worker Jobs is Critical to Improving Health Outcomes with Dr. Neal LeshDimagi has put a stake in the ground that to improve health and development outcomes and reach universal health coverage, we NEED to improve Frontline Worker jobs. Frontline Workers such as Community Health Workers are a critical part of health service delivery and many studies have proven just how impactful they are. We are facing a massive healthcare provider shortage globally which will likely be filled by Community Health Workers and non-specialized providers in a lot of contexts. But, they are underpaid, under-supported, and under-recognized. 70% of Frontline Workers are women, 86% are not fully salaried, and they deal with massive...
2022-08-0135 minHigh-Impact GrowthThe Challenges and Opportunities of Taking Digital Solutions to National Scale with Ismaïla Diene and Fatou Sow (Exceed Market Expectations)What does it mean that Dimagi is aiming to "Exceed Market Expectations" over the next 5 years? Dimagi has set out to creatively over-deliver on value today while shaping market alignment and raising expectations for tomorrow. In today's episode, we sit down with Ismaïla Diene, Managing Director for Dimagi's Solutions Division, and Fatou Sow, a Project Manager on our Solutions Division team, to dig in on a key consideration of this strategy: deepening our partnerships to drive national scale. Find out why achieving national scale for digital solutions like CommCare is so important to long-term impact, what makes it s...
2022-07-1846 min
High-Impact GrowthDeveloping CommCare to Scale iNGO Impact with Dev More (Exponential Growth Part 3)Jonathan Jackson and Amie Vaccaro speak with Dev More, Sr Director of Product at Dimagi, in part 3 of our deep dive into Dimagi’s strategy of sustaining exponential growth. A big part of exponential impact growth at Dimagi is scaling CommCare by continuing to invest in its self-service capabilities. Dev is responsible for CommCare roadmap and product development and in this episode he shares how he is thinking about scaling CommCare to 1 million users, and specifically about how we are making CommCare most useful as an enterprise technology platform for data collection and service delivery for nonprofit organizations. You'll al...
2022-07-0421 minHigh-Impact GrowthBuilding a Partner Ecosystem & Subverting the Hubris of Aid with Rowena Luk (Exponential Growth part 2)Central to Dimagi's strategy of sustaining exponential growth is building and scaling a thriving partner ecosystem, a community of local developers and implementers that can create content, build applications and drive innovations with CommCare to suit specific localized needs.
In today's episode we talk to Rowena Luk, Dimagi's Chief Connector, about the role of partnerships in creating high-impact growth. You'll learn about Rowena's journey to global digital health, including how a Canadian physician working in Ghana convinced her of the need for technology to improve healthcare in Africa. She discusses what it was like being one of t...
2022-06-2322 minHigh-Impact GrowthPrioritizing Platforms Over Projects with Danny Roberts (Exponential Growth Part 1)Dimagi recently published its 5 year strategy for High-Impact Growth. In this episode, we discuss Strategic Priority #2: Sustain Exponential Growth. Jonathan Jackson is joined by Dimagi's Director of Engineering, Danny Roberts, to unpack a key consideration: we prioritize platforms over projects. You'll learn:
Why Dimagi won't accept linear growth, and how we plan to go about achieving exponential growth to reach and support Frontline Workers globally
How Dimagi's focus on platforms has allowed us to develop CommCare with project-based funding
How Dimagi's engineering team thinks about building new requests into the platform and how t...
2022-06-0628 minHigh-Impact GrowthBusiness Model Changes, Key Hires, and Cultural Evolution with Jonathan Jackson and Dr. Neal Lesh (The Founding Story Part 2)In part 2 of the founding story we'll discuss some key moments in Dimagi's story such as shifting to open source, launching a software as a service model, and the impact of early hires on the trajectory of the company.
We'll also hear from Dr. Neal Lesh, Dimagi's Chief Strategy Officer about why he joined Dimagi and the role Dimagi has played in the mobile health and digital health space over the last 2 decades.
And we'll explore how Dimagi's culture has evolved in the last 20 years as the company has grown.
2022-05-2319 minHigh-Impact GrowthFortuitous Meetings and Tough Decisions with Dr. Vikram Kumar and Jonathan Jackson (The Founding Story Part 1)Learn about the very earliest days of Dimagi from our co-founders, Dr. Vikram Kumar and Jonathan Jackson. You'll learn:
Who Dimagi's founders are and what drives them
How the founders met
How they came to focus on the problem of improving healthcare with digital technology
What Dimagi's first project was like and why Dimagi ultimately decided to walk away from it
How design under the mango tree became a core ethos
The genesis of Dimagi's focus on creating value for the end user
2022-05-2323 min
High-Impact GrowthTRAILER: Introducing High-Impact GrowthA podcast about building and scaling sustainable digital solutions to serve people with the least access to resources brought to you by Dimagi.
In this trailer episode, you’ll meet Jonathan Jackson, Dimagi's CEO and co-founder. You'll learn what we mean by High-Impact Growth - a four pillar framework that's the result of 20 years of building, scaling, failing and building again.
2022-05-2305 min
Modern CTOTechnology for Social Impact with Jonathan Jackson, Co-Founder and CEO of DimagiToday we’re talking to Jonathan Jackson, Co-Founder and CEO of Dimagi. And we discuss how Dimagi built out tech for contact tracing and data processing during the pandemic. How Dimagi has augmented their engineering teams by working with Caktus Group over the years, and tips for approaching each new task with curiosity.All of this right here, right now, on the ModernCTO Podcast! To learn more about Dimagi, chat them out at: https://www.dimagi.comIn case you missed it: check out our episode with Co...
2021-12-2054 min
The Africa Health Ventures PodcastWalking Away from Half Your Revenue with Jon Jackson of DimagiJon Jackson is the CEO and Co-Founder of Dimagi, a social enterprise that delivers digital solutions to improve lives in over 130 countries. In today's conversation, we chat with Jon about the influences, the people, and the ideas that took him from being an MIT grad on Wall Street to the trenches building health systems in Zambia. As we reflect on Dimagi's founding story, we also hear Jon's conscious decision to be an idealist and an activist - in spite of the existential doubts that plague him to this day. We hear how the mismatch between frontline aid workers and...
2021-11-2444 min
The Africa Health Ventures PodcastForeign Aid or Local Aid? The Side Hustles of Ismaila Diene of DimagiToday we dive into the life and side hustles of Ismaila Diene, a senior executive within Dimagi. Born, raised, and now returned back to Senegal, he shares his experience with the diaspora, homecoming, foreign aid, entrepeneurialism, and structural inequity. Ismaila is a member of Dimagi's global executive management team. He leads our team in West Africa, runs a major global consulting practice, and is Dimagi's representative to government in multiple countries. At the same time, he also manages to bring technology leadership to our product roadmap, raises two children, and balances a host o...
2021-06-0146 min
Social Impact PioneersJon Jackson, CEO, DimagiAs the globe continues to grapple with the coronavirus epidemic, we hear from an expert in frontline healthcare data – Jon Jackson.
The technology Jon and his company Dimagi have created has already helped during the Ebola crisis. During this podcast we explore how data can assist us today. Whether it is contact tracing, data collection, decision support, and information dissemination – Jon explains why this information can make a real difference but also why COVID-19 is very different from Ebola.
This podcast may help you, as the technology Jon is talking about isn’t just for national governments, but can be used b...
2020-03-2512 min
CAMTech ChatsDesigning Under the Mango Tree with Jonathan Jackson, CEO of DimagiIn episode 8 of CAMTech Chats, CAMTech’s Director, Dr. Kris Olson, chats with Jonathan Jackson, the Co-Founder and CEO of Dimagi, about the translational grant CAMTech awarded Dimagi six years ago, the growth of CommCare, engaging frontline health providers in human centered-design, and what he wishes all innovators in impact-oriented social enterprise would be laser focused on.
CAMTech Chats is moderated by Nicholas Diamond.
2018-12-1028 min
Terms Of Reference PodcastTOR110: Dimagi with Mohini BhavsarSimilar to essentially any other industry, the problem of efficiently collecting project or program level data that can be readily crunched, analyzed and, ultimately, used by managers for decision making has been, and will continue, to be a conundrum for the development and humanitarian aid community for the forseeable future. I have often heard the frustration from professionals in the field, who wonder out loud why we haven't be able to put together one, or perhaps a small set of, technology solutions that can be used for monitoring any output, anytime. Beyond the actual technology itself, a key part...
2016-06-0743 min
Tips - Sant Shri Asharamji Bapu TipsDimagi Kamjori Ya Pagalpan Se Bachne : Pujya Sant Shri Asharamji BapuDimagi Kamjori Ya Pagalpan Se Bachne : Pujya Sant Shri Asharamji Bapu Tips
2013-01-1801 min