Members of the Touch Foundation community gathered virtually on May 18, 2020 to honor our Founder and President for the past 15+ years, Lowell Bryan, for his profound leadership and dedication to saving lives and relieving human suffering. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we re-imagined the event and held it online. If you missed it live, not to worry! You can view the event on demand here.
Rik Kirkland, Director of Publishing at McKinsey & Co., moderated our Asante celebration and interviewed Lowell on the urgency COVID-19 adds to the need to address Africa’s infectious disease burden and the potential to deploy digital health at scale to catalyze change in African health systems. The discussion was inspired by a white paper on this topic, which Lowell wrote and which we released during the event.
In the paper, entitled Early Thoughts on Potential of COVID-19 to Promote Digital Health in Africa, Lowell discusses the ways in which digital health has the potential to expand access to healthcare and decrease the infectious disease burden throughout the African continent. You can read the white paper on our website here.
This particular Asante was bittersweet as we honored Lowell for his tireless commitment to Touch Foundation as he stepped down from his position as Touch Foundation’s President. With that, we also welcomed Celia Felsher, longtime board member, who has taken his place. We are thrilled both that Celia has taken on the President role and that Lowell is not going far: he will remain active as Chairman of the Board and on several board committees.
After looking back at our impact over the years and exploring the gravity felt around the world with the COVID-19 pandemic, we ended the night by looking with determination to the future. As Celia said in her closing remarks,
“As has been made abundantly clear from the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are all, regardless of where we live, interconnected, and the strength of healthcare systems everywhere is necessary to ensure the health of all of us. Touch’s work is, therefore, more important than ever.”
You can view the online event here and read more about our programs and Lowell’s history with Touch here.