Faculty

Panelists

Irene Dankwa-Mullan, MD, MPH is a physician leader, scientist, and industry executive with diverse local, regional, and national leadership experience working in primary care, public health and health equity and the community. She is currently Chief Health Officer at Marti Health, a health equity start-up company that promotes comprehensive case management coordination targeting individuals and families from underserved and socially disadvantaged communities. She is an affiliate faculty professor at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Dr. Dankwa-Mullan was formerly Chief Health Equity Officer at IBM Watson Health. She also served as Deputy Chief Health Officer, Lead Scientific Officer for Data and Evidence. Her work at IBM received recognition and she was appointed to the IBM Industry Academy of distinguished leaders, to work collaboratively with other industry leaders on creative and cutting-edge technology innovation.

Dr. Dankwa-Mullan has maintained keen passion for patient-centered care, promoting equitable health outcomes and the patient experience while identifying opportunities to create more inclusive, culturally competent, equitable and compassionate clinical care services. Prior to IBM, she was at the National Institutes of Health serving in various leadership roles within the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She also served as Medical Director for public health services, working with community coalitions to develop prevention and screening programs in Maryland.

Dr. Dankwa-Mullan has published widely on health disparities, integration of health equity, artificial intelligence and machine-learning, ethical artificial intelligence (AI) and social justice principles into data science methods and technology development lifecycle.

Binoy Bhansali is the CEO and Co-Founder of Diverge Health, an organization that brings local population health support including community health teams, administrative support, and technology to primary care practices focused on serving the Medicaid population. Previously, Binoy led diversification efforts at SCAN, a $4B+ non-profit healthcare organization serving older adults across the country. In partnership with SCAN's CEO and diversification team, Binoy helped spearhead SCAN's efforts into PACE, in-home primary care, in-home chronic disease management, street medicine for individuals experiencing homelessness, and a merger with CareOregon. He was previously a Partner at Sandbox Industries, and previously held roles at Citigroup, Accenture, and Impact Investment Partners. Binoy has a bachelor’s degree in economics and psychology, with a minor in business institutions, from Northwestern University. He is a Kauffman Fellow, Class 23.

Abner Mason is the founder and CEO of SameSky Health, a cultural experience company that forms meaningful relationships to bring people to health. He has spent decades working to reduce barriers to care faced by underserved people nationally and internationally, from the federal to the local level. He currently sits on the board of Manifest MedEx, serves as the Co-Vice Chair on the board for California Black Health Network, and is a member of United States of Care’s Founders Council, the American Medical Association’s External Equity and Innovation Advisory Group, the HIMSS’ Social Determinants of Health Committee and the Medicaid Innovation Collaborative’s advisory board. Abner is the founder of HealthTech 4 Medicaid.

Sahee Abdelmomin is the Senior Associate on the Virtual Health team at Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL), an economic development organization pioneered by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. In this role, Sahee oversees program development that advances Virtual Health research, startup, and workforce development initiatives. The goal of these initiatives is to catalyze the development, validation and scale of virtual health solutions that equitably extend health access to ALL patient while creating opportunities for upward economic mobility for Tulsans. To date, Sahee and her team have launched BloomOK, an EDA funded program that catalyzes regional virtual health investments and Canopy Healthtech, a program that builds, fund and mentors startups around promising intellectual property located at Oklahoma’s flagship universities. Most recently, Sahee and her team are preparing for the launch of Health Nexus, an accelerator program that rapidly pilots and scales virtual health solutions. Sahee is keen to speak to organizations about research, partnership, investment, workforce development, talent matching, manufacturing capabilities, and startup support services available in the Tulsa region.

Moderator/Discussant

Rashmi Rao is an accomplished entrepreneur and inventor with over 40+ awarded patents topics including artificial intelligence, health regulatory topics, and patient data privacy and security and has demonstrated exceptional prowess in transforming ideas into lucrative ventures, amassing over $500M in revenue across the consumer, automotive, and healthcare sectors. Her stellar career includes impactful stints at tech giants like Qualcomm, Apple, Harman/Samsung, and Philips Healthcare, where she spearheaded initiatives that blend technology with sustainability to enhance people's lives.

As the founder of rcubed | ventures, Rashmi is dedicated to leveraging her expertise in identifying and disseminating transformative ideas with global impact potential, by providing investment and strategic guidance to select startups especially founded by women and minorities. As the founder of HLWF ™ Alliance, a women focused non-profit, rooted in her lived experiences, Rashmi aims to revolutionize women's role in all aspects of healthcare and wellbeing, through interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, aligned with national agendas to advance women's health research.

Rashmi's role extends into academia and global discussions, serving on boards at the University of Washington's Engineering Innovation in Health (UW EIH) and the World Affairs Council (WAC) – Seattle and the World Economic Forum (WEF). These positions amplify her influence in shaping new era of leadership in STEM, at the intersection of technology, public health and public policy.

Weitzman Institute Disclosure Statement

It is the policy of the Weitzman Institute to ensure that Continuing Education (CE) activities are independent and free of commercial bias. To ensure educational content is objective, balanced, and guarantee content presented is in the best interest of its learners' and the public, the Weitzman Institute requires that everyone in a position to control educational content disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. An ineligible company is one whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Examples can be found at accme.org.

Faculty participating in a Weitzman Institute-sponsored activity must disclose to the planning committee and audience all financial or other relationship(s) with ineligible companies.