Presenter
Prof Miriam K. Were
Profile:
Professor Miriam K. Were is a physician with a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, USA. From 1985 to 2000, she worked for UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Population Fund. She has also served as Chair of the Kenya National AIDS Control Council, Chair of the International Board of Directors of the African Medical Research Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Health Workforce Alliance. She has received the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize from the Government of Japan, the Queen Elizabeth II Gold Medal in Public Health, the George G. Tolbert Award from the United States Council on International Health, the Knight of the French National Honours for work in Mother and Child Health, UNICEF’s Maurice Pate Award, Award of Outstanding Merit by the National Council of Women of Kenya and Shujaa (Heroine) for Academic Prowess, Kenya & Elder of the Burning Spear in Kenya’s National honors.
Prof Keizo Takemi
Profile:
Professor Keizo Takemi is a member of the House of Councillors and was a Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health from November 2007 to June 2009. Prof. Takemi has been involved in various global initiatives, including the Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health, the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), the WHO Expert Working Group on Research and Development Financing, and the International Organizing Committee for the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC). He has been involved in various global initiatives, such as the GHWA and the WHO Expert. He also chairs the Parliamentary Caucus on the Stop TB Partnership and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD).
Sachiko Imoto
Affiliation:
Senior Vice President, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
Profile:
Sachiko Imoto is the Senior Vice President of JICA, responsible for JICA’s operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, Human Development, Economic Development, and domestic partnership strategy and management, including JICA – University Alliance.
With over 28 years of her career in development cooperation, she has extensive experience in the field of promoting good governance, gender equality, industrial development, and program evaluation. She has exhibited strong leadership in developing and promoting strategic partnerships with multilateral and bilateral development partners and public and private sector partners in the capacities of Director General of Media and Public Relations Department and Senior Director of Office for Global Issues and Development Partnership. She has also played a key role in strategic planning and project management as Senior Representative of JICA India Office and Director of South Asia Division 3 (Sri Lanka and the Maldives).
She holds a B.A. and M.P.A. from International Christian University in Tokyo.
Yasuhide Nakamura, MD, Ph. D.
Affiliation:
President, Friends of WHO Japan
Professor Emeritus of Osaka University
Profile:
Dr. NAKAMURA Yasuhide is a President, Friends of WHO Japan and Professor Emeritus of Osaka University.
After graduating from The University of Tokyo, and working as a pediatrician at Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital and Public Health Center, he started global health in Indonesia as a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) expert and to promote the refugee health program in UNHCR Pakistan Office. Dr. NAKAMURA was a Takemi Fellow (1996-97) in Harvard School of Public Health and worked in Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University (2000-2017). He got the 43th Medical Achievement Award (Iryo Kourou Sho) in 2015, because of the global activities on Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Handbook.
Dr. MBAMBOLE GRACE ALAKE
Affiliation:
Sub-Director for Vaccination/ Directorate of Family, Health/Ministry of Public Health, Republic of Cameroon
Profile:
Dr Grace ALAKE MBAMBOLE is a specialist doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology from the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon. She has an MSc in Epidemiology, Sexual and Reproductive Health Research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London.
Her professional career path includes consecutively being the chief medical doctor for reproductive health services in 3 District hospitals. She also gave part-time public health epidemiology lectures to master’s students in the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaoundé. She served as a Sub-director for Scientific Networks in the Division of Health Operation Research and Sub-Director for Immunization in the Ministry of Public Health of Cameroon.
She is the initiator and national coordinator for scaling-up activities using the MCH Handbook in Cameroon. She is the current Director of Cabinet medical, POSITIVE HEALTH SURGERY, a private clinic in Yaounde.
Dr Grace ALAKE’s professional affiliations include Cameroon Medical Order, Cameroon Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, SMITHs college, IMPRINTS member and a board member of the MCH handbook Organizing Committee.
Yoshinori Koda
Senior research architect, Biometrics Research Laboratories, NEC Corporation
Cooperative researcher, Nagasaki University, Institute of Tropical Medicine
Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University
Profile:
Yoshinori Koda is a Senior research architect at Biometrics Laboratories of NEC Corporation and is responsible for child-biometric technology research, including newborn identification systems to improve children’s social life in developing countries. He has more than 20 years of experience in various biometric projects, including large-scale biometric systems such as the National ID system. He has conducted field research for neonatal fingerprint identification technologies for a vaccination management system having mother and child information, together with KEMRI (Kenya Medical Research Institute) as a member of NUITM (Nagasaki University, Institute of Tropical Medicine).
Muuo Nzou
Affiliation:
Assistant Principal Research Scientist, at the Center for Microbiology Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute
Visiting Associate Professor, Nagasaki University
Profile:
Muuo Nzou is an Assistant Principal Research Scientist, at the Center for Microbiology Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute and a Visiting Associate Professor, Nagasaki University. Previously, He worked as an Associate Professor, Institute of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, and a Principal Research Officer Nagasaki University, Institute of Tropical Medicine -Kenya Medical Research Institute Projects (NUITM-KEMRI PROJECT).
He holds a MSc in Medical virology from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, a PhD in Medical Sciences from Nagasaki University and a Health Research Capacity Strengthening Postdoctoral Grant, Wellcome Trust, in Surveillance, google imagery satellites and artificial intelligence. His interests in infectious diseases focus on vaccine and diagnostics development, molecular epidemiology, surveillance and omics leading to drug resistance patterns in humans, where he has published extensively in these areas.
Kazuchiyo Miyamichi, MPH, M.V.Sc.
Affiliation:
Project researcher, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University
Profile:
Kazuchiyo Miyamichi is a project researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Nagasaki University and is attached to the Africa Research Station. After graduating from the School of Veterinary Medicine of Hokkaido University, he served as JICA Volunteer in Senegal to start his career in Africa. He worked as a Junior Professional Officer at the UNDP/UNV Headquarters and as WASH and community participation experts for various JICA projects, mainly in francophone African countries, for 20 years. He is now in charge of the Pregnant Woman and Infant Registration (WIRE) system in the Kwale area of the NUITM-KEMRI project site, Coastal Kenya.
Ahmed ElSayed
Affiliation:
Professor of Surgery Alzaiem Alazhari University, Sudan
Director Alazhari Health Research Center
Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Alshaab Hospital, Khartoum Sudan
Profile:
Professor Ahmed ELSAYED is a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon with more than 35 years of clinical experience in the surgery domain, exclusively in cardiothoracic surgery. He graduated from Khartoum University and then specialized in General Surgery and Cardiothoracic Surgery in the United Kingdom. He also has an MSc in medical education and a degree in health informatics. In 2017 his active research career led to his appointment as the inaugural director of the health research center at his university till now. Through this capacity, he has taken a keen interest in all the matters that help to improve health services in Sudan. His primary interest is in non-communicable diseases, but he has also been heavily involved in other domains, including maternal and child health. In this latter field, his main interest has been using emerging technologies to help advance this field in developing countries.
DR. PATRICK KUMA-ABOAGYE
Affiliation:
Director-General, Ghana Health Service
Profile:
Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye is the Director General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), leading the development and implementation of high-impact solutions to tackle challenges faced by the Ghanaian Health Sector.
Before his elevation to the topmost office of the Ghana Health Service, he was the Director of the Family Health Division (GHS) with responsibility for RMNCAH (Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health), Nutrition, and Health Promotion.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye is a Public Health Physician with over 27 years of experience as a Clinician and Public Health Specialist. As a maternal health advocate, he has worked relentlessly to reduce maternal deaths and improve the survival and well-being of women and children in Ghana.
Akiko HAGIWARA, Ph.D.
Affiliation:
Senior Advisor (Health), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
Profile:
Dr. Akiko HAGIWARA, Senior Advisor for health at Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since 2007, obtained Ph.D. in health promotion, is responsible to provide technical leadership and oversight for JICA’s cooperation projects and programs in the health sector, particularly Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), including nutrition and family planning. Over 25 years, she has led, managed, and implemented JICA’s flagship projects, including the promotion of the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Handbook in various countries in coordination with partner countries and global partners. She was a chief technical advisor for the development and national rollout of the MCH Handbook in Palestine (2005-2009), for Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon (2009-2011), in Ghana (2016-2022) and other African countries. She was also an advisor when UNRWA and JICA developed digital applications for the MCH Handbook for Palestinian refugees in 2011.
Naoyuki Kawahara
Affiliation:
President, NGO Rocinantes
Visiting Professor, Nagasaki University
Profile:
Prof. KAWAHARA Naoyuki is the president of NGO Rocinantes and a visiting professor at Nagasaki University. He graduated from Kyushu University and worked at the Department of Surgery at the university. After finishing the Ph.D. program at the graduate school of Kyushu University, he took the medical attaché at the Japanese embassy, first in Tanzania and then in Sudan(1998-2005). He resigned from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and founded an NGO because the Japanese government had cut bilateral aid to Sudan for political reasons. He named the NGO “Rocinantes” after Don Quixote’s horse. Currently, Rocinantes has continued its medical relief work in Sudan since 2006 and Zambia since 2019, focusing on maternal and child health care.
Panel discission facilitator
Kaoi Nakasa
Affiliation:
NGO Rocinantes Consultant
Profile:
Kaoi Nakasa is a global health professional with over ten years of experience in Africa and the Middle East, providing services to the crisis-affected population and building capacities of communities for preparedness and response for public health emergencies such as the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak and COVID-19 pandemic. Over her ten-year career working for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), she was stationed in Kenya, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Egypt. During the period she was based in South Sudan, she led a team operating biometric registration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and utilizing the data for humanitarian service delivery in the northwestern region of South Sudan in coordination with various humanitarian agencies and organizations.
Master of Ceremony
Mizuki Kato, M.D.
Affiliation:
Senior resident, Cancer Control Center, Osaka International Cancer Institute
Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University
Profile:
Mizuki Kato is a senior resident at the Cancer Control Center, Osaka International Cancer Institute, and a Ph.D. candidate in Cancer Medicine at the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University. She is involved in research on the quality of medical care and quality of life for pediatric cancer patients. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Osaka University. While in school, she actively managed student organizations on global health and participated in overseas study programs on rural health care systems in Tanzania and Lao P.D.R. She is a member of Friends of WHO Japan and has coordinated symposiums on global health.