From left to right: Caroline Hermant (FPF ODESS Project Manager), Kristin Chloe Pascual (AeHIN Secretariat Lead/Project Manager), Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran (AeHIN Executive Director), Léa Matel (FPF Head of Digital Health Programs), Maxime Collin (FPF Digital Health Project Manager) | Photo credit: ODESS 2025 Conference, Lydie Lecarpentier

On 9 October 2025, the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) participated in the 2025 Conference of the Global South eHealth Observatory (ODESS), held in Lavaur, France. AeHIN was represented by Mr. Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran, Executive Director, and Ms. Kristin Chloe Pascual, Secretariat Lead/Project Manager. This year’s theme, “Digital Health in Times of Crisis,” focused on how digital technology can improve access to healthcare, maintain service continuity, and support vulnerable populations during emergencies. Since 2018, AeHIN has collaborated with the Fondation Pierre Fabre (FPF) to evaluate outstanding digital health projects from the Global South and contribute to their annual conference program.

During the conference, Mr. Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran presented an award to Digital Disease Surveillance (DDS), one of the digital health projects recognized this year. DDS, an initiative from the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, leverages advancements in data engineering, data science, and artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize disease surveillance systems in the country. By enhancing the four critical steps of public health surveillance—data collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination, DDS aims to create a more responsive and efficient public health infrastructure. More details are available at https://www.odess.io/en/initiative/digital-disease-surveillance/

AeHIN Executive Director Jai Ganesh Udayankaran gives the digital health project recognition award to the Digital Disease Surveillance team at ODESS 2025 | Photo credit: ODESS 2025 Conference, Lydie Lecarpentier

When asked by the moderator what he found interesting about the DDS, Mr. Udayasankaran highlighted the initiative’s approach on interoperability. He noted, “When we talk about a nationwide digital disease surveillance, to not leave out those facilities which might not have a hospital information system (HIS) is very important. By providing an application programming interface (API) to pull data from a variety of HIS deployed at the hospitals, as well as making available an online system for those health facilities that do not yet have HIS, this initiative has made sure they can source data from all hospitals, with or without HIS”. 

AeHIN Executive Director Jai Ganesh Udayankaran shares his insights about the  Digital Disease Surveillance project at ODESS 2025

Mr. Udayasankaran also commended the initiative’s collaboration and convergence efforts, wherein the Ministry of Public Health partnered with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation for partial financial support on system development; the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society for technical support in areas of cybercrime and data privacy; and the Ministry of Natural Resources for the provision of environmental and animal data. He said, “The Ministry of Health has a certain core competence that is more on the health but then there are other things like last mile connectivity or the maintenance of ICT infrastructure, for which, if there can be collaboration with other Ministries or a Whole-of-Government approach, it can lead to optimal utilisation of resources and (make) nationwide implementation more effective and meaningful.” He also pointed out that the initiative includes a built-in predictive model, which makes it future-looking.

Other projects awarded during the conference included:

Watch the ODESS 2025 livestream here.