On Wednesday 11 April, the CSC Alumni Team were joined by Commonwealth Alumnus Dr Iffat Zafar Aga for the Development in Action webinar series. Dr Aga shared a presentation on ‘Democratising healthcare in Pakistan through telemedicine’ about the role of technology in widening access to healthcare for people in Pakistan.
This webinar addressed the CSC development theme of Strengthening health systems and capacity.
The CSC’s Development in Action webinar series aims to highlight the work and research of Commonwealth Alumni across a range of development impact areas.
About the speaker
Dr Iffat Zafar Aga is the Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer of Sehat Kahani, a telemedicine start-up based in Pakistan.
Founded in 2017, Sehat Kahani provides telemedicine services that connect patients in remote regions with medical practitioners and to date has facilitated 1.2 million medical consultations with 800 medical experts. In 2022, Sehat Kahani was featured on Forbes Asia’s 100 companies to watch list.
Dr Aga has been recognised with notable awards from the SPRING Accelerator (2016) and the MIT Enterprise Forum Pakistan (2015). She is passionate about public health and through her telemedicine startup she aims to provide healthcare access to people.
Dr Iffat Zafar Aga is a 2017 Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholar from Pakistan. She completed an MSc in Global eHealth at the University of Edinburgh.
Using a telemedicine-based platform to transform healthcare access
In this webinar, Dr Aga provided an overview of her start-up company, Sehat Kahani, and the significant role that telemedicine plays in Pakistan. Dr Aga emphasised the impact that Sehat Kahani has had on communities in Pakistan since its inception and underscored the crucial importance of telemedicine in revolutionising the healthcare industry.
She also discussed how telemedicine can empower marginalised communities, with a special focus on women and children, and highlighted the diverse applications of telemedicine, including retail apps, corporate apps, and e-health clinics.
Finally, Dr Aga talked about the prospects of telemedicine and its integration with AI technologies, envisioning how this fusion might shape the future landscape of healthcare delivery in the years to come.
This webinar presentation was followed by an interactive Q&A session with Commonwealth Scholars and Alumni. A recording of this webinar is available to view on the CSC YouTube channel where you can also watch previous events in the series.
Join future Development in Action webinars
The CSC’s Development in Action webinars take place each month and are open to all Commonwealth Scholars and Alumni.
To find out about upcoming webinars, please visit the CSC’s events webpage.
