Following in the footsteps of our first two cohorts — Disaster Management and Climate Resilience — the Now Go Build CTO Fellowship welcomes seven new fellows tackling a very important challenge: healthcare.

The intersection of health and technology is very important to me. Before I started building distributed systems, I was a radiologist at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in the Netherlands. I worked alongside passionate doctors who would stay late into the night, knowing that any unfinished work meant patients would have to wait another day for potentially life-saving diagnoses. One colleague, Frank, kept telling me my skills would be better used building technology that could help people at scale. The transition wasn’t as drastic as you might imagine, it turns out that in both fields the most important problems are human problems.

What I’ve come to understand, both in healthcare and in technology, is that innovation means little if it can’t reach the people who need it most. Having the most advanced imaging technology means nothing if patients can’t access it. The best diagnostic tools in the world are useless if they sit in hospitals that people can’t reach, or if the results can’t be interpreted quickly enough to take action and provide care. When you’re building solutions in places with limited resources, you can’t just scale patterns that work in well-funded areas—you have to think differently about everything.

This batch of Fellows get it. They’re working in environments where you can’t always count on reliable connectivity, where economic realities shape every decision, where patients might be days away from the nearest clinic. And rather than seeing these as limitations, they’re using them as design constraints to reimagine healthcare and services from the ground up. For example, delivering critical maternal health information to remote populations without smartphones, or using off-the-shelf messaging platforms to scale mental health services in areas lacking professional resources. These Fellows are proving that the most effective solutions emerge when technology is shaped by the communities that use it.

With that, I’d like to introduce the latest batch of Now Go Build CTO Fellows (in their own words).

Maryam Bello, Parkers Mobile Clinic

Based in: Abuja, Nigeria

I’ve spent the last eight years turning adversity into action, building tech-powered solutions that bring healthcare to the frontlines of crisis. As co-founder of Parker’s Mobile Clinic, I’ve led a team that has reached over 150,000 people in flood-affected and underserved communities, using AI powered telemedicine and mobile outreach to close deadly gaps in care. As the executive director of ITIS, I help train the next generation of African innovators to harness AI and digital tools for social change. I see the AWS CTO Fellowship as a launchpad to scale resilient systems, sharpen my technical leadership, and boldly reimagine what’s possible for communities often left behind.

Ezekiel Brooks, U.S. Hunger

Based in: Orlando, FL, USA

As Chief Technology Officer at U.S. Hunger, I am leading the charge to adopt cloud and AI-driven solutions in pursuit of our mission to connect food assistance, social care, and healthcare nationwide. I am committed to our vision of “Feeding Families Today and Uniting Them to a Healthier Tomorrow,” ensuring every emergency food intervention is paired with strategies to identify and address the SDOH gaps that are the root causes of food insecurity. Using food as a gateway, our platforms deliver actionable insights and real-time metrics to connect families with social benefits, empowering organizations and agencies to gain a 360-degree understanding of the people we serve and help prevent billions in aid from going unclaimed. I am grateful for the opportunity this Fellowship provides to advance this mission.

Miriam Chickering, NextGenU.org

Based in: Minneapolis, MN, USA

I lead NextGenU.org’s mission to make quality education a global public good. Our AWS-powered platform delivers free health and STEM education to over 600,000 learners worldwide, from training more than 100,000 healthcare workers in the DRC to teaching science and math to 10,000 children across West and Central Africa. We create learning materials in partnership with major UN agencies, universities, hospital systems, and international education partners.

We recently developed 52 textbooks, workbooks, and teacher guides in multiple languages across three countries, alongside professional development and field research, at a fraction of the typical development-sector costs. Now, we’re building the Intelligent Textbook Machine (ITM), an AI-powered platform that scales this approach and will facilitate the development of high-quality, localized learning materials for every teacher and child. I’m grateful for the opportunity to join the Now Go Build CTO Fellowship and eager to strengthen the technical leadership and AWS expertise needed to scale this innovation and help improve access to education worldwide.

Rajasekhar Kaliki, Piramal Foundation

Based in: California, USA

I grew up in a remote village in southern India; our family had little beyond enough food to get by. I’ve been fortunate to earn a degree and chase my dreams - opportunities that still remain out of reach for many children from my village, even today. This contrast shaped my purpose: to help ensure every child - regardless of gender, geography, or socio-economic background - has a fair chance to live the life she chooses. Technology is my strength, and I believe it can be a powerful equalizer when applied with intent.

At Piramal Foundation, we work with government departments to help them adopt digital technologies and AI to improve public service delivery - across health, education, and other sectors - by increasing institutional capacity and data-informed decision-making. We promote the use of open-source digital public goods, strong public-private partnerships, and robust governance frameworks to make digital transformation programs both impactful and sustainable.

I’m excited to join the Now Go Build Fellowship to engage with fellow technologists from across the world who are also using their skills for social impact - and to learn from their journeys.

Branden Michaelsen, Our Wave

Based in: Raleigh, NC, USA

Our Wave was founded to build digital healing and support spaces for survivors of sexual harm, domestic violence, and child abuse - a healthcare crisis that affects 1 in every 3 women and 1 in every 6 men worldwide. As CTO, my team and I blend trauma-informed clinical research on healing techniques with cutting edge AI to pioneer mental healthcare platforms for survivors. To date, we have supported survivors in 70 countries using the power of scalable cloud computing, which has helped us reach disempowered survivors often overlooked by traditional services. This fellowship provides an incredible opportunity to collaborate with fellow innovators for social good and further hone my leadership skills to amplify our mission.

Sandra Muzambi, Friendship Bench Zimbabwe

Based in: Harare, Zimbabwe

I’m Sandra Muzambi, working at the intersection of community mental health and digital innovation. My focus is on using technology to streamline data collection and feedback systems for initiatives like Friendship Bench Zimbabwe, helping us better understand and serve our clients. I am tackling challenges around data interoperability, scaling human-centered AI, turning raw data into actionable insights and aligning efforts across regional teams by building tools that are both scalable and locally grounded. The Fellowship will help refine these solutions with global insights, connect me with peers tackling similar challenges in their own context, and support my goal of scaling impact through smarter, more inclusive tech.

Jay Patel, Jacaranda Health

Based in: Kenya

I am the Director of Technology at Jacaranda Health, where I pioneer the use of AI to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes across Sub Saharan Africa. I led the creation of UlizaLlama, the first open LLM for five African languages, and am currently leading the development of open Swahili Voice AI models. At Jacaranda, my team also developed UlizaMAMA, a specialized AI that provides pregnant women and new mothers with nearly instantaneous responses to their health queries. My leadership has been a key part of scaling Jacaranda’s digital health platform to serve millions of users across the continent, and I expect the fellowship to increase the impact of my work and reach millions of more mothers across the continent and beyond.

A new series of Now Go Build is on the way

It’s hard to believe we’re approaching the first anniversary of the Fellowship. For the past year, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with our inaugural Fellows in Disaster Management and Climate Resilience, and their work has been nothing short of inspiring. And I’m excited to share their stories with the launch of a new Now Go Build series in the coming weeks.

Now, Go Build!

Recommended

• Learn more about the Now Go Build CTO Fellowship
• Meet the Fellows focusing on disaster management and climate resilience
• Watch episodes of Now Go Build