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openIMIS Newsletter July/August 2025

Welcome to our July/August 2025 newsletter! Many exciting things have happened that we want to call your attention to:

Latest Highlights

  • New article in the "Celebrating Women in Tech" series
  • New corporate design elements
  • Updates on "Learning Exchange on AI in Health Insurance"

Recent Events Attended

  • ADB INSPIRE - INclusive, Sustainable, Prosperous and REsilient (INSPIRE) Health Systems in Asia and the Pacific Health Forum
  • WHO Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH)

Upcoming Events

  • "Celebrating Women in Tech" Bhela community call
  • openIMIS Introductory call - GMDS (Jena) - World Health Summit (Berlin)

Your openIMIS Coordination Desk Team

 

Latest Highlights

New article in the "Celebrating Women in Tech" series

Suravi Bhandary

In Nepal, women hold fewer than 10% of STEM roles, and women in leadership positions are even rarer. Nevertheless, leaders like Suravi Bhandary are proving what’s possible, including driving Nepal’s national rollout of openIMIS and influencing global social protection systems. 

In our newest article, Suravi shares how she entered tech, why representation in tech leadership matters, and more lessons from her work. 

You can find this latest article on our website.

New Corporate Design Elements

Showcasing openIMIS — and its versatility and impact — is a key part of our work at the coordination desk. We focus on raising awareness, reaching new communities, and demonstrating the opportunities openIMIS offers. Recently, we published the digital flyer in French, Spanish, and Portuguese on our website.

On LinkedIn, we’re engaging our growing community in new ways: sharing articles, posting short videos, and promoting events like the Bhela community calls. You may have also noticed our refreshed visuals in recent posts. Next, we’re preparing new Word and PowerPoint templates for the community, which we’ll share soon on LinkedIn.

If you’re not following us yet but want to stay updated — and be the first to access these templates — check out our LinkedIn channel here.

Updates on "Learning Exchange on AI in Health Insurance"

Investing in AI offers significant opportunities but also brings challenges for health insurances. AI can enhance insurance program management, increase efficiencies, and improve equity through better targeting, especially in resource-constrained contexts. However, it also requires robust policy and governance frameworks to address issues such as data quality, privacy, and ethics.

This is where the "Learning Exchange on AI in Health Insurance" comes in, a joint effort by Amref Health Africa, Asian Development Bank (ADB), and GIZ's Global Alliances for Social Protection (GASP) program. Bringing together health insurance and digital health experts from various countries, several online and in-person exchanges are contributing to the development of an e-Learning course on AI for Health Insurance that focuses on Claims Management and Fraud Control. The course aims to equip professionals with practical, ethical, and informed AI skills for social health insurance.

Read more about the Learning Exchange and the upcoming e-learning course in the article available on Healthy DEvelopements.


 

Recent Events Attended

ADB INSPIRE 

(INclusive, Sustainable, Prosperous and REsilient) Health Systems in Asia and the Pacific Health Forum

From July 7-11, openIMIS participated in the INSPIRE Health Forum 2025 at ADB Headquarters in Manila, the Asian Development Bank’s flagship event for strengthening health systems across Asia and the Pacific.

The forum brought together government leaders, development partners, private sector innovators, and technical experts to explore solutions for universal health coverage (UHC), digital health transformation, pandemic preparedness, and climate and health challenges.

The conversations at INSPIRE demonstrated a growing interest in integrated digital health ecosystems. It was great for the openIMIS coordination desk to connect with partners who share our vision for inclusive, sustainable, and resilient health systems and the openIMIS initiative is looking forward to turning these discussions into action.

 

title of event with a screenshot of a meeting

WHO Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH)

A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective on Digital Health Implementation in Nepal

As part of the WHO 2nd Global Convening of the Global Initiative on Digital Health (July 14-18), held under the theme "Coming together to build back better", the openIMIS initiative had the opportunity to host an engaging panel on July 17.

Moderated by Saurav Bhattarai, Team Lead of the openIMIS coordination desk, the session focused on the value of multi-stakeholder partnerships to achieve digital transformation in health, bringing in perspectives from government institutions, the private sector, and regional collaborators.

The panel featured:
* Dr. Saroj Sharma – Chief, Quality Standards and Regulation Division, Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP), Nepal
* Dr. Roshan Koju – Director, ICT and Information Division, Social Security Fund (SSF), Nepal
* Ms. Garima Chand – Digital Health Expert, SunyaEk Nepal
* Mr. Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran – Executive Director, Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN)

For an overview of the topics discussed and takeaways of the panel, see our LinkedIn post  .

A heartfelt thank you to our panelists for their valuable insights, and to the engaged audience whose contributions made the session even more impactful.
 

Upcoming Events

Celebrating women in tech, with profile portraits of the community members

"Celebrating Women in Tech"

Bhela Community Call

Women remain underrepresented in STEM. Our recent article series highlights their stories, featuring women working in tech across the openIMIS initiative and exploring their careers, motivations, and opportunities.

This upcoming Bhela community call is an invitation to come together—to connect, brainstorm, and inspire one another. We’ll provide background on the topic, explore regional perspectives from several countries, and then dive into collaborative work to spark ideas and action.

You are welcome to join the knowledge exchange, share your thoughts, ideas, and insights.

🗓️ Wednesday, September 24
⏰ 10:00 - 11:00 CEST
🖥️ Jitsi Meet - https://meet.jit.si/openIMISImplementers 
👥 Open to the public


openIMIS Introductory call, GMDS, and World Health Summit

The upcoming weeks are filled with exciting opportunities and events where the openIMIS initiative will be present

openIMIS Introductory call, September 10, online, open to the public
We offer this briefing call as a preparation for the Stakeholder Conference that will take place soon after. For more information, see the dedicated LinkedIn event.

openIMIS Introductory call, September 10, online, open to the public
We offer this briefing call as a preparation for the Stakeholder Conference that will take place soon after. For more information, see the dedicated LinkedIn event.

GMDS congress, September 7-11, Jena, Germany
The congress provides a platform for participants to discuss current developments, trends, and exchange experiences within digital health. For more information, see the GMDS website.

World Health Summit, October 12-14, Berlin, Germany
It brings together global health stakeholders from all sectors and regions to find solutions for the most pressing health challenges. In 2025, it takes place under the theme "Taking Responsibility for Health in a Fragmenting World".

Want to stay up to date on upcoming events in social protection and health insurance? Check out our dedicated wiki page! There you’ll find updates on who from our team and partners will be attending, key deadlines, and more.