YV and Ashoka Fellows make an impact

For the very first time, Forbes has released a list of the world's top social entrepreneurs. Among this prestigious bunch are 10 Ashoka Fellows, one whom began as a Youth Venturer! Check out the full Top 30 list!

Congratulations to Ashoka Fellows: Rafael Alvarez, William Foote, Sam Goldman, Farell Hammond, Jordan Kassalow, Wendy Kopp, Josh Nesbit, Rebecca Onie, J.B. Schramm, and Jill Vialet.

About former Youth Venturer, current Ashoka Fellow - Josh Nesbit

Josh Nesbit spent the summer of his junior year of college researching access to malaria treatment in Malawi. For eight weeks, he lived and worked at St. Gabriel’s, a rural hospital first introduced to Josh by his mother, who is spearheading Malawi’s first physical therapy program at the region. It was there that he witnessed first hand the inefficiencies that limited the impact of community health care workers delivering care in remote regions.

He returned the next summer with 100 recycled cell phones, a donated computer, and a plan to coordinate communication between St. Gabriel and the expansive region under the hospital’s care using existing open-source text message software, FrontlineSMS. During that six month pilot project, which Josh dubbed Mobiles in Malawi, texting saved hospital staff 1,200 hours of follow up time, allowed the hospital to double the size of its tuberculosis program, brought home-based care to 130 patients who otherwise would not have received care, and saved antiretroviral therapy monitors 900 hours in travel time. The success of the project moved Josh to shelve his medical school plans in to devote his efforts full-time to transforming the community health worker system. With close collaborator Isaac Holeman, he soon founded, the organization that is today called Medic Mobile.


Now, Medic Mobile promotes decentralized medical care for the rural poor by maximizing the efficiency and efficacy of community based health care workers using mobile phone based communication systems. Instantaneous communication among community health workers and between community health workers and physicians and nurses at clinical hubs means that citizen health workers can provide care to their communities with much less dependence on a centralized medical facility. Because SMS is simple, affordable, and widespread, it represents a health care solution that can be championed at the most grassroots level. This factor was integral to Josh’s early idea, and continues to be a core foundation of Medic Mobile’s ongoing strategy.

Josh was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2011