The Pakistan Caucus at Harvard Kennedy School is set to hold a detailed conversation focused on Health Tech and the role of the state in enabling digital healthcare startups. The session, titled Health Tech and The State: How Policy Can Enable Digital Healthcare Start-ups, will explore how developing nations can create supportive environments for emerging health-focused digital platforms. The event will take place on November 25 from 4:00 to 5:15 PM in Room L332 at Harvard Kennedy School, where participants will hear reflections from Find My Doctor Founder and CEO Saad Wahab Siddiqui. Organizers have positioned the session as an opportunity for attendees to understand the realities of policy limitations, access challenges and the regulatory complexities that startups often face when delivering digital healthcare services.
Discussions at the session will frame how health systems in many developing countries face widening gaps between patient needs and available care. While private sector innovators are adopting digital tools to improve outreach and service delivery, their progress is sometimes slowed by policies that have not fully adapted to new models of care. Participants will explore the balance between ensuring patient safety and enabling founders to build services that respond to real-time health access constraints. Speakers are expected to highlight how policy environments in the Global South often require navigation through overlapping procedures, approvals and operational restrictions that can affect scalability. Saad Wahab Siddiqui will elaborate on these themes by sharing experiences from building Find My Doctor, a platform that has grown by leveraging digital tools to provide medical access and connect patients with reliable services.
The event aims to provide insight into how policymakers and founders can collaborate to establish structures that support innovation without compromising public trust. Attendees will hear perspectives on digital governance, the evolving role of state institutions and opportunities for cooperation between public entities and private operators. The discussion is anticipated to touch on how regulatory systems can shift toward enabling models that promote entrepreneurship in health services. Using Find My Doctor as a case study, Saad Wahab Siddiqui will explain how digital models can be strengthened when frameworks align with operational realities, especially in markets where resource constraints demand flexible solutions. His reflections are expected to show how experience from Pakistan’s health tech sector can offer a relevant reference point for broader conversations on service delivery in similar regions.
Organizers have encouraged participants to engage with questions related to public-private partnerships, long-term digital governance structures and ways to support sustainable healthcare delivery in the Global South. The session aligns with ongoing debates about how states can transition from traditionally restrictive roles into positions that encourage responsible innovation. The Pakistan Caucus highlighted that this conversation aims to bring academic stakeholders, students and professionals together to explore the intersection of policy, technology and healthcare access. With interest in digital transformation on the rise across multiple sectors, the event is expected to attract attendees who want to understand how health tech founders can navigate complex systems and how governments can support these efforts.
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