Tito Ovia
Tito Ovia is the co-Founder of Helium Health, Africa’s largest health-tech provider, which builds the technology and data infrastructure to make it easier for anyone, regardless of their social class or economic status, to access quality healthcare on the continent. Tito’s childhood dream was to provide world-class care to as many people as she could across Africa. Today, in her role as Head of Public Sector Growth at Helium Health, she is fostering public-private partnerships that accelerate Africa’s transition to a technology and data-driven healthcare system. Her work in African healthcare has helped make her a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and a winner of the Future Africa Award for Disruption. When Tito is not working on fixing healthcare in Africa, she is occupied with Feminist Coalition, the women's rights advocacy group she helped found that is promoting equality for women in the Nigerian society, with a core focus on education, financial freedom and representation in public Office. She has a degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Manchester.
Tuesday, 9 March 2021 Day 2
Town Hall: Youth engagement and entrepreneurship
Hosted by Amref Health Africa
The African continent has the youngest population in the world – and it is rapidly growing. In 2015, African youth (aged 15-24) accounted for 226 million people; by 2055, this number is expected to more than double. Africa’s demographic dividend creates a unique opportunity to widely engage a new generation of citizens to participate in the continent’s development and growth. Youth-led programs that aim to engage and equip young persons with the relevant skills to influence policies and institutions are critical to harness this opportunity – and to foster environments in which African youth are given a chance to thrive and meaningfully contribute to their communities.
This Town Hall will be an informal, moderated Q&A session featuring a renowned youth leader and entrepreneur. The moderator will take questions from conference participants, submitted through the virtual platform’s interactive chat. The AHAIC Town Hall series is intended to give participants the opportunity to engage with a high-level speaker on their career, professional journey, and areas of expertise and interest.
Wednesday, 9 March 2021 Day 3
Youth Leadership in Global Health
Hosted by Transform Health
Africa is currently the youngest continent. It is estimated that Africa’s population will grow to over 2.2 billion by 2050 (from around 1.2 billion in 2015). In order to satisfy the healthcare needs of this growing population and harness the demographic dividend, African governments, working with the private sector and civil society, will have to make use of digital technology and data to transform health systems to achieve Universal Health Coverage. Across the continent, young people are driving innovation in digital health and advocating for greater youth leadership and engagement in shaping health policies and services. Greater commitment and investments in young people’s engagement, capacity building and advocacy are essential to harness the potential of more African youth to drive equitable progress towards health and development goals. This session will focus on the importance of leveraging the knowledge and dynamism of African youth to shape health policies and programmes in a digital, post-COVID world; highlighting the role of platforms like Transform Health and Young Experts: Tech 4 Health in supporting youth to influence the digital health agenda; and how to mobilise greater investment in youth and opportunities for them to shape digital transformation in health, so that countries across the continent can achieve UHC by 2030.