Global good partners in profile: Anna Winters, Akros
Each quarter, Digital Square shines the spotlight on innovators in the global goods community. Anna Winters is the CEO of Akros, a cutting edge organization that establishes data-driven systems to improve the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities. Akros prides itself on ground-level knowledge of the service delivery systems where the organization works, and its ability to provide novel, lasting solutions implemented in developing regions.
Tell us about your background and how your career has evolved to bring you into the global digital health sector.
I’ve had a very diverse background with an early start that focused on wildlife and fisheries ecology. Although tracking coyotes and wolves in Yellowstone National Park was all a very exciting adventure, my focus shifted significantly after spending an extended time in Western and Southern Africa. I saw children with recurrent basic health issues—diarrheal diseases, malaria, and poor nutrition—that affected their learning and development. Many of these issues can be addressed with drugs and treatments that are readily available. I changed course, leaving wildlife biology behind, and instead determined that I wanted to be involved in getting life-saving health commodities to the people in last mile communities.
It has been a winding path! I encourage early career seekers to get as many diverse experiences under their belt as possible. I found that my interests became more honed and refined through pursuing completely different directions, at times. Eventually I was able to link my love of ecology with human health through the study of vector-borne disease ecology during my graduate work. During this time, and then with the CDC, I focused on building spatial risk models of vector-borne disease.
What I find especially exciting now, through my work at Akros and in advancing the digital health global good, Reveal, is our opportunity to put the power of spatial data in the hands of community health workers (CHWs). Through Reveal, field teams and their managers are able to visualize populations requiring services, and understand the true coverage of health interventions. The stories and maps of how people in last mile communities are now living—through the help of Reveal—and receiving life-saving commodities like malaria bednets or drugs for onchocerciasis, is our motivation.
What excites you most about the digital health space?
The way digital health has boomed in Africa is astonishing. The opportunities that we now have, like using spatial data captured by satellites to understand the location of populations so they can be best served with targeted intervention services, offers a paradigm shifting opportunity to get health services to all. The real success is when we can take this high-powered data and make it as usable, operational, and contextually relevant as possible for those delivering health services, like program managers and field teams. We see that as our passion and mission at Akros, and our primary location—with most of our staff in Africa—has helped to root our work in the context, making it as relevant and mission-focused as possible.
How has your work evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our work has expanded laterally. We brought the approaches, tools, and methods we’ve used in the areas of malaria, neglected tropical diseases, and water and sanitation, and are applying them to COVID-19 surveillance and response. For example, we are now working with the Institute of Human Virology-Nigeria (IVHN) through NIH’s program “Harnessing Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa” to improve understanding and surveillance of COVID-19 and HIV in Nigeria and South Africa. With this work, we are aiming to build spatial models and targeted intervention strategies. We have also teamed up with the African CDC to support multiple countries across Africa for pharmacovigilance and adverse outcomes monitoring for COVAX. My hope is that the learnings that we gain—as the global digital community at large—through this global pandemic are not lost, but rather serve to elevate and enhance disease surveillance and response globally.
How has your work been impacted by the support of Digital Square?
Digital Square has been a real guiding light for our organization as we’ve grappled with how best to bring Reveal, a spatial intelligence platform, to fruition in ways where it is readily accessible to governments and partners to get health to last mile communities. I’ve appreciated how Digital Square has invested in the core development necessary to get digital health global goods, like Reveal, adaptable, ‘shelf ready’, and sustainable. I’ve also appreciated how Digital Square has assisted us in ways that at the time we didn’t even know were needed—for example, investing in community building and engagement in global networking events that are key to policy and systemic change.
How do you think Digital Square is helping to bring together the global good communities?
Digital Square is helping to define not only define what a global good is, but also the steps towards developing out global goods, which includes the necessary administrative structures (legal guidance, for example) and leadership structures beneficial for global good development. I also appreciate that Digital Square is a learning community that is focused on assisting global goods to think about what it really means to be sustainable, particularly in the business model and financial sense.
How will COVID-19 impact the digital health sector over the next five years? How do you generally see the digital health sector evolving over the next five years?
I believe a main way the digital health sector will evolve in the near term involves stepping outside of siloed systems and instead acting as a catalyst to improve the harmonization of multiple health areas. For example, I believe we will soon move to a norm of community health data being the core driver of where services are delivered in a more targeted, data-driven fashion. CHWs will more commonly offer multiple services to communities simultaneously, using targeted maps of service gaps to guide their daily activities.
An area that we really need to be looking at centers on who has the rights and ownership of health data? How can we grapple with privacy issues, particularly as our data streams have the opportunity to become more individualized across many countries? These are some of the challenging questions that need to be engaged with as a community.
What are some of your other interest areas?
I spend part of the year in Montana, USA and part of the year in southern Africa. Both places offer incredible opportunities for recreation, be it mountain biking, skiing, or enjoying camping in wild places or taking trips to the beach. I’m grateful to enjoy these kinds of outlets with my three kids, my husband, and my friends!