Damilola Ojo is driving healthcare innovation as senior product manager and lead designer of Dr. Lola, a cutting-edge AI health assistant developed by Kromium Health.
She is a tech trainer and digital products builder with five years specialised experience growing and managing businesses. She possesses interdisciplinary experience, having worked in the technology, health, and insurance sectors.
Damilola is passionate about health and improving access to quality healthcare services. She is determined to ensure that location and financial capacity are not barriers to accessing quality healthcare services in the country.
She says the country’s healthcare system is under constant strain and burdened with lots of challenges.
“A doctor-to-patient ratio as low as 1:10,000 in some regions in the country, clinics hours away from rural communities, and city hospitals so overburdened that people avoid them unless absolutely necessary,” she notes.
These she notes have made healthcare access difficult, especially for poor and low income earners.
But amid these challenges, Damilola saw an opportunity. “WhatsApp and Telegram had become integral to daily Nigerian life – people were organising businesses, families, and social lives through these platforms.” “Why isn’t healthcare accessible here, too?”
To leverage this opportunity, Damilola led a team at Kromium Health that co-designed and developed Dr. Lola – a multilingual AI health assistant.
“Every route to help had a barrier, language, distance, cost, and stigma, especially for sexual health,” she says while trying to address the challenges.
“We thought of designing a product that removed all of those barriers simultaneously. No app to download. No English required. No face-to-face interaction for sensitive topics,” she explains.
Dr. Lola was designed to break these barriers, making healthcare as accessible as sending a message. To ensure that the AI health assistant is medically safe and available in local languages, she co-designed Dr. Lola with qualified doctors and software engineers.
Over her five-year career, Damilola has worked with a broad range of organisations from start-ups to enterprises and cultivated multiple market segments from the base of the pyramid, all the way upstream.
A thoroughbred professional, she was attracted to Kromium Health because the company is involved in the business of the future.
She says the business of healthcare is very critical for the survival of any nation, especially when it is intertwined with technology.
“Nigeria’s healthtech sector is in a fascinating and critical moment. The country’s healthcare system is under structural strain by a rapidly growing population,” she says.
“I believe AI-driven innovation, community health models, and multilingual channels are part of key structural innovations that the industry needs,” she notes.
She faults the funding model of several healthtech products in the country, saying they weren’t built on financial sustainability but on grants and impact investments.
Read also: https://businessday.ng/education/article/how-johnson-samuel-turns-problems-into-profitable-ventures/
“What concerns me is sustainability. A lot of healthtech products in Nigeria are built on grant funding or impact investment. The ones that will last are the ones that are financially sustainable and find a genuine revenue model alongside their social mission,” she says.
According to her, Dr. Lola is built on a partnership model, which involves embedding the chatbot as a channel within existing healthcare providers’ patient journeys. “It was a deliberate attempt to build in financial sustainability from the start.”
Aside from co-designing digital products, Damilola has trained and mentored thousands of early-career tech professionals.
She explains that since she benefited from training and mentorship while starting out in the tech industry, she also wants to help shape the next wave of tech innovators in the country.
“I benefited enormously from people who gave me their time and knowledge when I was starting out, people who didn’t have to help me but chose to.” “It has stayed with me, and I feel a responsibility to pass it forward.”
“Nigeria is producing extraordinary talent. Every cohort has people with real intelligence, creativity, and drive. I want that talent developed, instead of stagnating because the right opportunities and guidance weren’t there at the right moment,” she notes.
Damilola adds that mentoring has also taught her the importance of trust. “Before a mentee will take your feedback seriously, they have to believe you understand their situation and want them to succeed.”
“Before a user will share a sensitive health concern with Dr. Lola, they have to trust that the platform is safe and non-judgmental. The principle of trust is applicable in both contexts.”
She urges aspiring tech professionals not to think that having the right course, certification and moment is what they need to succeed.
She says, the most common thing I see holding talented people back is waiting until they feel sufficiently qualified, waiting for the right course, the right certification, the right moment.”
“In a field that moves as fast as technology, readiness is a moving target. The people who develop fastest are the ones who start building, start contributing, start putting ideas into the world before they feel fully prepared, and then learn from what happens,” she notes.
She advises, “Be problem-first, stay close to the problem, not the technology. Technology is a means, not an end, and it moves so fast that if you chase it, you’ll always be slightly behind.”
“Invest in people alongside skills. Your network, the community you build, the people you help and the relationships you maintain will help to shape your career in ways that no certification or portfolio project can,” Damilola adds.
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
