Tackling Inequalities: Through innovation and entrepreneurship

Professor Bola Owolabi (MRCGP, MFPH Hon, FRSPH) is Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England (NHSE).

She works as a General Practitioner in the Midlands.

Bola has particular interest in reducing healthcare inequalities through integrated care models, service transformation, and using data insights for quality improvement. She has spearheaded NHSE’s Core20PLUS5 approach to narrowing healthcare inequalities.

Internationally, Bola was a member of the Danish Ambassador’s Tour De Health – a ten nation healthcare policy leaders’ summit. Additionally, she was the UK representative on the Commonwealth Fund / Academy Health Tour 2023, exploring equity in national health policy across the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

She was previously National Speciality Advisor for Older People and Integrated Person-Centred Care at NHSE, where she led the Anticipatory Care workstream of the National Ageing Well Programme. She collaborated with teams across NHSE and the Department of Health and Social Care as part of the Covid-19 pandemic response.

Bola is an alumna of Ashridge Executive Education / Hult International Business School and holds a Masters degree with distinction in Leadership (Quality Improvement). She also received an NHS Leadership Academy Award in Executive Healthcare Leadership for Clinicians.

Bola is an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Birmingham. She is also a Vice President of the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH).

Kaakpema Yelpaala, who goes by “KP,” is a global entrepreneur and public health practitioner with a deep understanding of health systems and 20 years of experience working across the public and private sectors in the United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean. He is a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health.

Kaakpema Co-Founded InOn Health in 2018. The company improved access to care in the United States using digital communication channels and consumer insights to better connect multicultural populations to healthcare services. Prior to InOn Health, he also founded access.mobile International. access.mobile was a global digital health company that developed solutions to improve access to health information and services in African countries. The company implemented programs in 13 African countries. KP served as one of the early employees of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and worked as a management consultant for Dalberg Global Development Advisors.

Kaakpema is a member of the External Equity and Innovation Advisory Board for the American Medical Association. In early 2021, Governor Jared Polis appointed him to serve on the Colorado eHealth Commission. He is now the Chair of the Commission, which governs all health IT for the State of Colorado.

Kaakpema received a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from Brown University and a Master of Public Health from the Yale School of Public Health. He is a 2023 Rock Health Top 50 in Digital Health Luminaries honoree.

Professor Kevin Fong OBE, MRCP, FRCA is a prominent British doctor and broadcaster known for his significant contributions to medicine and space exploration. He currently serves as a consultant anaesthetist and anaesthetic lead for major Incident Planning at UCL Hospitals (UCLH), alongside being a Professor who oversees the undergraduate course in Extreme Environment Physiology. He is most known for his television appearances as a presenter on the BBC science programme, Horizon, and gaining widespread acclaim for hosting the 2021 Channel 4 series, Extreme A&E, in which he explored trauma centres worldwide.

In 2015, he delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, focusing on "How to Survive in Space", a series broadcast on BBC Four, using his learnings from his masters degree in astronautics and space engineering. Beyond his academic and television roles he is a pre-hospital doctor with Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex, specialising in Space Medicine. He is also the co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE) at UCL. 

Throughout his career, Dr. Fong has been a passionate advocate for the UK's involvement in international human space exploration programmes. He co-founded the Centre for Aviation, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine and played a key role in launching the UK's first undergraduate course in Space Medicine and Extreme Environment Physiology. In addition to his medical achievements, Dr. Fong has made significant contributions to public engagement in science. He received The Wellcome Trust's first Public Engagement Fellowship in 2011 and a senior fellowship award in Innovation and Engagement in 2016.