 Welcome back and now to our interview segment. Linda, who is an influential trade laser and has made a significant impact in technology, blockchain and health sectors through transformative leadership. As the CEO of Afri Health, she championed innovative healthcare solutions, revitalizing the industry and improving lives across Africa. She joins me now on today's discussion. Thanks for joining me, Linda. Good morning to you. Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me on the show. It is indeed my pleasure. So, Linda, let's talk about them, health tech. It seems to be gradually becoming like a norm right now in the nation's healthcare sector. If we talk about penetration in Nigeria, how far would you say that we have come so far? So, I would say that when we speak about health tech, we are talking about the broad, you know, it's broader than, you know, encompassing it in that vocabulary, which is health tech. In health tech, we have telemedicine, we have information health systems, we have mHealth, we have e-pharmacy, we have a lot of it. And prior to this time, we know that when we talk about health issues, people are rather reactive to it as opposed to being proactive. But one thing that the internet has done is that it, I mean, technology needs to be an enabler. And as I said today, global internet penetration standards, 50-60% in Nigeria, let me come down to Nigeria, internet adoption and penetration is at 50%, right? And this is continuing to enable technology to solve pain points in critical sectors and health happens to be one of it. Now, how is technology solving this issue? We have areas of telemedicine, like I've said, areas of, you know, storing your emergency record, your health record on, you know, a digital platform. You have mHealth, which is the mobile health applications. We have e-pharmacies, and then we have AI and machine learning, which is coming to just, you know, disrupt the space. So as far as penetration goes, you know, to answer to your question, I say that, I mean, we're going to need to see innovations like this on the rise. We're going to need to see solutions like ours, to come up to solve critical pain points in the healthcare space. All right. It became very, very popular as it was in Nigeria during the COVID-19, during the pandemic, and a whole lot of people actually began to embrace it so much. Let's look at one of the values, you know, the supply, the supply side that you talked about, which is e-pharmacy. A lot of people are seemingly actually using that term, that term aspect of a health tech, and that they make demands and that they get their drugs, they get their pharmaceuticals online. But so far, would you really say that we have been able to reach the demands of Nigerians through e-pharmacy? So I would say that for e-pharmacy as a specific vertical, it is also big with a lot of challenges, right? Challenges around regulation, because at the end of the day, you need to instill some kind of controls that sanitize the space. And what we are doing around regulation, I'm sure you must have heard of our trigger plus, and the vertical of trigger plus is the e-pharmacy side where you have, it's like a marketplace where pharmacies are allowed to onboard and upload their drugs, you know, their inventory, and then this is accessible to people real time. And you know, with platforms like this comes regulation. So one thing we have been able to do, and one thing I see that the space is tripling that is complying and just complying with the regulations around this value chain and this vertical, which is the e-pharmacy. As of today, you cannot talk about e-pharmacy without actually talking about e-commerce. And e-commerce as a vertical has its challenges, now talk about a niche space as e-pharmacy. What we've come here to see is that technology would bridge the gap in some rural communities. What we try to do again at AFRIO and trigger plus would be that we are channeling, you know, our strategies towards underserved communities. So what you see is that for some communities, you have to travel very far before you get that one accredited pharmacies. What are we doing and what are we doing with technology? What we are doing is leveraging technology, right, to join hands with the regulators, liars with pharmaceutical outlets accredited making sure that we have on our platform pharmacies that you can come in to shop only wholesome products, right? Wholesome products would be that you are not at the risk of shopping contraband or you are not at the risk of shopping counterfeited goods. As long as that pharmacy is verified, you find that person on our platform. So what we are trying to do and what we can need to, you know, evangelize within the ecosystem is sit within the regions of compliance. I don't think we alone can solve the problems that continue to, you know, persist in the health care value chain, right? When you talk about the pharmaceutical side, the thing which is e-pharmacies, when you talk about mHealth, when you talk about telemedicine, after all, the loan cannot solve these problems. So what are we trying to do? We are going to collaborate with private stakeholders. We are going to collaborate with public stakeholders to ensure that we scale because the acceptance that we can need to find, the acceptance that we can need to see across the vertical is just the point out to the stats that continue to validate the pain points. Let me paint a green picture for you. All right. We have one patient to 2,753 doctors per Nigeria. Let me come down to Lagos. We have one patient to 15,000 doctors. We have just 40,000 clinics or health centers across Nigeria. That is one patient, one hospital to over 5,000 patients that is what the landscape looks like today and technology would be that enabler, would be that balancer that we are looking to scale access to premium health across Nigeria and by implication Africa. All right. Let's do talk about the supply side issues right now. Some challenges inherent in health tech. I had the opportunity to attend a CME sometime last year. They had several medical practitioners in attendance. One of the things that was resounding amongst all of them there was the issue of health tech funding specifically for laboratory equipment and of course some hospitals equipment. They talked about the issue of ventral capital and how expensive it is and there is an issue of getting back money and all of that because Nigerians actually pay for these healthcare needs from their pockets and at the end of the day so they cannot really afford most of these technologies as it were. So can you just throw more light on that as the issue of health tech funding? So I think the issue of funding, I'll put on my video shortly I think the issue of funding is it doesn't that issue is not peculiar to healthcare that issue is not peculiar to healthcare at all it goes across different verticals it goes across finance it goes across agriculture and I also want to think about the landscape that we're currently playing which is Africa funding to Africa we saw a lot of it in 2021 but it kind of slowed down in 2022 and 2023 and all verticals are a health technology or healthcare thing what I feel that can be done to continue to attract this kind of investment would be building meaningful products that solves real life issues and that is why we continue to advocate for access to premium healthcare because that is a fundamental that is I think it's a fundamental human right across the globe is a fundamental human right to everyone right now if we continue to build real life issues real life problem solutions that are tackling real life problems that are actually speaking to now let's come down to the healthcare sector that is actually speaking to what's called diagnosis that is speaking to emergency records that is speaking to what we call access to doctors real time without having to travel all the way to a pharmacy now those are real life issues that actually requires a lot of funding because the infrastructure all build out the whole technology build out cost a lot so if I am to speak I would say that we would need a lot of a lot of funding around these verticals alright still on some of these challenges I still want you to walk me through it so I can understand clearly in terms of medication distribution what sort of a challenge do health tech providers have in that particular line so healthcare providers do not have a problem actually the people with these pain points that we are actually trying to solve would be the manufacturers who are actually manufacturing pharmaceutical products and importers who are actually importing pharmaceutical products what would come to find as a problem would be problems around sterilization problems around counterfeit medication problems around diverting where you know it's as though you have a particular product concentrated in a particular region what have we done to tackle this problem we have what is called regardless of manufacturers and what we essentially do would be to solve these problems for manufacturers and importers but we have a whole sterilization line that is very state of art you know take lot to purpose and helps you combat the issues of bog stuffing helps you confront the issues of location recall you need to actually batch recall a certain product help you primarily combat the issues around drug counterfeiting it is a no-brainer right when we talk about the significant losses that is accredited to manufacturers with regard to counterfeit products the significant losses that is accredited to importers with regard to not able to track their products and not able to vouch for the integrity of their products right actually it's bridging all of that with its solution regardless of manufacturers which is a lot of sterilization problems drug counterfeiting, bog stuffing location recall, location geofencing, name it right we can customize a solution that works for every manufacturer all right Linda fine we've talked about some of the challenges and some of the threats that we have to the health firm tech sector but I know that it has actually come to stay and I believe there are lots of opportunities and prospector can you tell us where you see us that's Nigeria as a country in the next five years in terms of service solutions providing solutions that is in terms of health firm tech yeah like I said at the very initial of this interview right when as Africans and growing up in Nigeria I would understand that it's only when you have malaria that you begin to treat it there is nothing like preventive measures but as we continue to see the adoption of internet the internet and as we continue to see digital natives now people who are born into this technology would continue to see a rise in uptake in telemedicine would see an uptake in health information system mHealth like I said e-firmacies and AI machine learning and of course you know what we can all see what the technology which we call blockchain we can see the revolution and the disruption that is bringing to the sector in the next five years what I would see would be like would have a lot of internet of things around the health care space that is a vertical of technology that is going to scale big data analytics is going to be a theme why because we are already collecting data anyway so when you are looking at what's the call you are looking at making a decision when it comes to a demography say you are looking at a particular demography we have we are now putting together which is big to big data analytics the VR and AR thing is going to be a theme in the coming five years I'm sure that would have consultations in the metaverse drone deliveries and the lights so I do think that if I'm to come down to layman's term the future is really bright with regards to health technology alright thank you so much Linda we have been speaking with Hashi she is an influential tradeblazer and of course she is with AfriTech and she has given a whole wonderful insights to the prospect of health tech in Nigeria do you appreciate your time Linda thank you so much and thank you for having me