Stanford Medicine's Associate Dean for Maternal and Child Health, Gary Darmstadt kicked off the symposium alongside AIF chair Lata Krishnan.

This well-known couple - a Bollywood actress and a cardiovascular surgeon - opened the symposium with a conversation about the challenges that women and children currently face in India. The conversation was moderated by Priya Singh, Senior Associate Dean, Strategy and Communications, Stanford Medicine.

AIF President and CEO Alex Counts discussed the achievements, learnings, and implications of AIF's signature health program MANSI, a public-private partnership that has reduced child mortality in 167 tribal villages by more than 40 percent.

AIF Director of Public Health Charu Johri and Mamta Mahato, a community educator (Sahiya) spoke about their experiences, successes and challenges. This session was moderated by Vinny Bhutani, Professor of Pediatrics, Stanford Medicine.

In his research on the emotional brain and how it shapes decisions and experiences, Stanford GSB professor, Baba Shiv has identified the processes that make innovation possible. In this session, he presented the principles behind design thinking and introduced the audience to entrepreneurs who have drawn on these methods and applied them successfully to their complex challenges. The entrepreneurs were Krista Donaldson (D-Rev), Pushkar Ingale (Laerdal Global Health), Robert Stebbins (SecureScan), Josh Nesbit (Medic Mobile), and Piya Sorcar (TeachAIDS).

School of Medicine faculty showcased the latest research in maternal and child health. Faculty presentations by Gary Darmstadt, Associate Dean, Maternal and Child Health, Jennifer Newberry, Instructor, Emergency Medicine, and Dennis Wall, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, of Biomedical Data Science and, by courtesy, of Psychiatry.

Dean Lloyd B. Minor, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine spoke about Stanford's current and future plans to not only treat women and children around the world who are sick but keep them from getting sick in the first place.

Raj Doshi, Stanford Medicine and Diaz Nesamoney, AIF presented the winners of the first AIF-Stanford Medicine Innovation in MedTech Award, which celebrates innovators who are disrupting poverty and catalyzing social and economic change in India.