Addressing Women’s Inequities through Technology

Nimmi Ramanujam, PhD, is a professor, entrepreneur and a thought leader in women’s health innovation. Her mission is to develop technologies that have wide reaching impact in women’s health. She directs the center for Global Women’s Health Technologies at Duke where she empowers trainees at Duke and beyond to create impactful solutions to improve the lives of women and girls globally. She has presented the global impact of her work at the United Nations. She has received many awards for her work: the TR100 Young Innovator, the Global Indus Technovator, Era of Hope Scholar, the Stasnell Family, the Emerging Leader in Global Health, the Social Impact Abie, the Biophotonics Technology Innovator, the Michael S. Feld, and the Women in Molecular Imaging Network. She is a fellow of several optical and biomedical engineering societies including OSA, SPIE and AIMBE. She has also been elected to the National Academy of Inventors and is a Full bright Fellow.

Section I: Tracing the origins of health inequity
1. The role of innovation in modern health care
2. Women’s health is an exemplar for point of care technologies
3. Beyond medicine – the role of health systems and access to care Cancers are beginning to exemplify the glaring inequities women’s health globally
4. Social, educational and structural barriers that escalate disease burden

Section II: How point of care technologies can solve medicine’s ills
5. Democratization of care through innovative health care delivery models
6. Disruptive Innovations based on point of care technologies
7. Generating evidence is key to adoption

Section III: Transcending science for sustainability
8. Sustainably scaling health care innovations
9. Making a business case for a mostly non-consumer market
10. Who better address women’s health disparities than women themselves