Episode 9 - Interview with Joy Kamunyori

In this episode we hear from Joy Kamunyori, a digital health and project management professional from Kenya about her 14 year career assessing, developing and implementing public health IT systems in sub-Saharan African countries. 

We discussed:

• Joy’s background what she studied and how she ended working in public health 
• How her passion for education and development and skillset landed her in a public health role that started of her career
• How she became interested in Computers  and eventually chose to study computer science 
• What she likes and drew her to coding and computer science 
• How mentorship played a significant role in her career and choices at many junctures 
• Her experience pursuing graduate studies in Computer Science 
• What her work looks like now, in scale and range and the kinds of problems she supports solving 
• How she considers herself an interpreter in her work in digital health and what that looks like 
• How her roles have changed as her career has progressed in the field 
• The relationship between Public health, education and development 
• How Digital Health as a field  and use of technology for health started, emerged and has now expanded to be integral in public health systems 
• Challenges and key considerations for countries as they transition to having fully digital health information systems and how Joy has come across and been part of these conversations
• What are Joy’s favorite things about doing her work 
• What public health means to Joy 
• Joy’s advice to a younger self 
• Top 3 skills she recommends to work on in the field