Dr Joe Brew

Joe is a data scientist with a background in public health. He’s passionate about research, building teams, and using technology to solve complex problems. He spent much of 2018-2019 setting up the DrOTS program in Pyuthan.

Mr Gangaram Budhathoki

Gangaram Budhathoki is the project manager for the DrOTS Nepal project in BNMT Nepal and currently stationed in the regional office, Nepalgunj. He has been working with DrOTS Project since January 2019 but he has been part of the Birat Nepal Medical Trust team since 2017. He was initially appointed as District Program Coordinator for TB REACH Wave 5 project for Bardiya and Salyan district and later upgraded to M&E manager in the project. His job role includes the program planning, managing, coordination, monitoring & evaluation, implementation, recording and reporting of program activitiess as per Project objectives and activities within the regional and project districts.

He has worked with Government job in various health institutions as a health officer for more than twenty years and also in I/NGOs for more than three years as program officer and program coordinator. During his tenure with Government health institutions and I/NGOs offices, his role included the facilitation (training, meeting & workshop), coordination, drafting of project proposals, program design, planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation, recording & reporting and research activities. Gangaram also has previous experience at the Government health system, Nepal National Tuberculosis program, district program coordinator, regional HIV program officer and community health quality improvement Officer.

Gangaram holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Tribhuvan University, Nepal in Health Education and Masters in Public Health from State University of Bangladesh (SUB). He wants to see Nepal as TB free region.

Dr Maxine Caws

Max Caws is the Principal Investigator of IMPACT TB and a senior TB researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She was Head of the TB group at Oxford University Clinical Research Unit Vietnam for 11 years and researches diverse aspects of TB including drug resistance, diagnosis, clinical treatment trials, bacterial virulence, and host susceptibility determinants. She is currently based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She has a BSc in biochemistry from the University of St Andrews, a PHD in medical microbiology from King’s College, London, where her thesis topic was tuberculosis meningitis and an MSC in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Ms. Caws facilitates the links between consortium partners to ensure successful design, coordination, and delivery of research goals.

Mr Raghu Dhital

Raghu Dhital is the Executive Director of BNMT Nepal. Raghu has worked in community based public health with BNMT for twenty years and has diverse experience across multiple sectors, including infectious diseases control programmes, WASH and disaster response and recovery. He has a strong passion for working with communities to identify priorities and facilitate solutions together. Throughout his career, he has worked in partnership with government health services and NGO networks to augment existing services and contribute to the development of Nepal.

His main responsibilities are to oversee the overall activities of BNMT; develop strategies, plans and activities for the all the programs of BNMT; establish good coordination and collaboration with government authorities, District Health Offices, NGO partners and advocates and facilitate the successful implementation of Tuberculosis Control Program.

Before taking this role, Raghu served as the Deputy director of BNMT. He previously worked as Project Manager for IMPACT TB phase I from 2017-2019. He was involved in Britain Nepal Medical Trust as a TB REACH Project Manager from February 2012 to June 2014 and has successfully implemented TB REACH WAVE- 2 project in Nepal. He has also been involved in Active Case Finding through systematic mobilization of community health volunteers including initiation of microscopic camps in hard to reach areas of Nepal.

Ms Kritika Dixit

Ms Kritika Dixit is a young Nepali researcher, a Master of Public Health with a specialization in Global Health from Thammasat University, Thailand. She has six years’ experience in project implementation, monitoring and evaluation with BNMT. She is currently a Research Manager at BNMT. She got registered for a PhD at Karolinska Institute in early 2020, while still based in Nepal and supervised by Dr Caws and supported by IMPACT 2 TB. This will consolidate her skills in research design, analysis and interpretation to allow her to realize her ambition of becoming an independent infectious disease research leader while building local research capacity with international standard training. Ms Dixit will conduct qualitative research on the drone implementation, exploring feasibility, acceptability and utility among healthcare workers and community stakeholders.

Dr Noemia Teixeira Filha

Dr Noemia Teixeira Filha is the health economic lead on IMPACT TB. She completed her PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on health economic evaluations of TB interventions in low and middle income countries. She has adapted and validated the WHO costing tool for application in Nepal and developed the data collection tools for the health system costing of ACF interventions in Nepal in collaboration with BNMT staff. She is familiar with the data availability and health system components in Nepal and will apply this knowledge to the health economic evaluations of DROTS. She has trained local field and research staff in applying and interpreting the costing questionnaire and will continue to build local research capacity for health economic evaluations in Nepal.

Ms Sita G.C

Sita GC is a Community health supervisor of the DrOTS Nepal positioned at Pyuthan district. She has been working with us since October 2017. Sita has completed CMA/CTEVT from Human Resource Development and Research Institute Kathmandu. She worked as a program coordinator of ‘Breaking the barriers’ program in Tikuri Active Youth Group for 3 years. Later, she joined BNMT as a volunteer for TB REACH Wave 5. Her passion inspires her to fight against TB and have a healthy and happy community.

Dr Jürg Germann

Dr. Jürg Germann serves as Head of Engineering at WeRobotics where he spearheads the engineering side of all cargo drone projects across the global Flying Labs network. He is an expert in drone technology as well as drone operations. Over the past 12 years, Jürg worked extensively on drone technology in the lab and transferred the technology successfully to multiple countries around the globe. Together with his team at WeRobotics he provides technical expertise, mentorship, troubleshooting and technical development of cutting-edge cargo drone projects. This includes the first ever drone-led Mosquito-release campaign to combat Dengue in Fiji or drone-operated Tuberculosis diagnosis in rural Nepal.

Jürg holds a PhD in Robotics from EPFL and has taught several courses at graduate level and supervised more than twenty master projects in both academia and industry.

Jürg was born and raised in the Swiss alps, and his heart beats for nature. In his spare time you find him somewhere in the mountains skiing, snowboarding, snow kiting, kitesurfing, windsurfing or hiking.

Mr Suman Chandra Gurung

Suman Chandra Gurung is an Executive Director of BNMT Nepal. He is a public health specialist with MPhil in Population Studies from TU, MSc in Development Management (International Health) from UK, PG Development Management from UK and Bachelor in Public Health, Certificate in General Medicine from TU, Institute of Medicine, Kathmandu, Nepal. He has over 27 years’ experience of health & development work in Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Tibet and UK and employers include BNMT Nepal, IOM Nepal, NHSSP (DFID) Nepal, DHSP (DFID) Nepal, UNDP/UNV Bangladesh, Surmang Foundation Tibet/China, ADRA/Nepal, UMN CDHP Nepal, Save the Children Fund (UK) Nepal.

Suman has had wide and extensive experience of project management, health systems strengthening, planning, monitoring, evaluation, facilitation skills, co-ordination, research and technical assistance to government & External Development Partners (EDPs). He has also been involved in developing guidelines, manuals, resource maps, MoHP staffs job descriptions, proposal developments, curriculums, lesson plans and has trained health workers, volunteers and teachers.

Mr Pravin Lamsal

Pravin Lamsal is senior Drone Pilot at DrOTS with three years of flying experience of different models of multicopters for various social good project applications and as a team lead for surveying and mapping projects at NFL. Pravin has a Bachelor in Geometric Engineering from the Himalayan College of Geometrics Engineering (Purbanchal University), Kathmandu, Nepal.

Mr Govind Majhi

Govinda Majhi is our District Program Coordinator for Pyuthan District. He has been working with DrOTS Project since July 2019 but has been part of the Birat Nepal Medical Trust team from 2017. His job role includes the planning and implementation of programme activities for DrOTS Project within the district.

Govinda holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Purbanchal University (Nepal) and a Master’s Degree from Rajiv Gandhi University (India), both in Public Health. His Masters focused on ‘Factors causing delay in pulmonary-TB diagnosisin Morang District Nepal’. Continuing his interest in TB, Govinda applied for an internship in BNMT’s tuberculosis programme in Sunsari District -sponsored by Global Fund. He was then offered a job as District Programme Coordinator for the area of Dang, Udayapur and Makwanpur for IMPACT TB. His passion towards fighting the chronic ongoing problem of TB in Nepal inspired him to eventually apply for his current role in Pyuthan district. His vision is to see a TB-free Nepal.

Dr Patrick Meier

Dr. Patrick Meier has over fifteen years of experience working on a wide range of humanitarian technology projects in the Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Liberia, Congo-Brazzaville, Malawi, Tanzania, The Gambia, India, Nepal, Philippines, Timor-Leste, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Morocco, Western Sahara, Haiti, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Northern Ireland with multiple international organizations including several UN agencies, the Red Cross and World Bank. His book, Digital Humanitarians, has been praised by experts at the UN, Red Cross, World Bank, USAID, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford and others. Patrick serves as Executive Director of WeRobotics where he coordinates the organization’s Health Robotics Program, focused on the use of cargo drones in public health. In 2010, he was publicly recognized by Clinton for his pioneering work in humanitarian technology, which he continues to this day. Patrick has served as a Fellow at MIT Solve, Stanford, Harvard, Rockefeller Foundation, UBS Global Visionaries, UNICEF Innovations and National Geographic. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Pre-Doc from Stanford, an MA from Columbia University, and holds a CASA certified drone pilot license and was born & raised in Africa.

Mr Gokul Mishra

Gokul Mishra is the National TB programme liaison officer for IMPACT TB and will continue in this role on IMPACT 2 TB and DROTS. He is based at the National TB Centre in Kathmandu and works closely with the NTC staff to ensure alignment of project goals and activities with National Strategic Plan objectives. He has ten years’ experience of TB epidemiology in Nepal and has collaborated with the NTC on development of the national strategic plan, global fund applications, prevalence survey and national epidemiology review He will facilitate organization of the policy dialogue, key informant interviews and dissemination of research findings. His role will ensure integration of the research goals with evolving political structures and strategic plans of the NTC.

Mr Biplav Pageni

Biplav Pageni is a mechanical engineering professional from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University College of Engineering, Hyderabad, India. He is the Project coordinator for DrOTS Nepal project working closely with project lead, field coordinator and BNMT on overall project management and collaboration as well as with the federal government securing necessary permissions to keep all the legal activities upto date. He has experience of working in an intensive Research, Design and Development of electric vehicles in Nepal as well as other mechanical fields including production industries and airlines where he worked in different aspects of procurement, supply chain management as well as continuous airworthiness management and aircraft maintenance program.

Mr Puskar Raj Paudel

Puskar Raj Paudel is the Project Manager of the IMPACT 2 TB project, based in Makwanpur district. He has wide and extensive experience in community-based research projects, including randomized controlled trial (RCT), specifically in the area of maternal and child health, nutrition and tuberculosis issues, disaster risk reduction, cooperative, microenterprise development, and economic development. He is a monitoring and evaluation and surveillance professional with Masters in Population Studies and Masters in Sociology from TU. He has over 12 years’ experience in project management, team management, logistic planning, monitoring, and evaluation of health & development work in Nepal. He has previously worked in KNCV TB Foundation, Mother and Infant Research Activities (MIRA), the New Era, SSMP/NHSSP, and Mercy Corps Nepal.

In DrOTS Nepal, he is mainly responsible for the preparation, assembling/configuration, training, and deployment of smart pillboxes and assesses their effectiveness.

Mr Darpan Pudasaini

Darpan Pudasaini is an electronics and communications engineer by education, and an innovator who has worked in the field of embedded system designs, IoT, Robotics, Sensors design, 3D printing, Drones and Augmented and Virtual Reality primarily. Some significant projects include: design and prototyping of anti-drone high energy radio frequency system with Nepal Army in 2014, a portable smart water testing device with UNICEF NEPAL in 2015, a virtual sensor framework for early warning of elephant intrusion in Chitwan and Bardiya districts of Nepal with WWF Nepal (2015 – 2017). He started working in innovation technological solutions through his first startup EANepal (Engineering ADDA Nepal) in 2013, then later on formed DroNepal, the first Drones as a Service and Drone R&D company in Nepal, in 2016 where he currently works as the CEO. He also designed and conducted UAV training of trainers for Nepal Police for the first time in Nepal, and has continued to provide training to multiple national and international organizations, government authorities and professionals since then.

Mr Uttam Pudasaini

Uttam Pudasaini, a Geometrics Engineer is leading the technical team at Nepal Flying Labs implementing the DrOTS project and working closely with all stakeholders of the project coordinating project activities and operations. He has six years of experience working as a project lead immediately after completing Bachelor of Engineering in Geometrics Engineering in 2014. He is also a cofounder of a GIS and digital mapping service provider company- NAXA, based in Kathmandu. NAXA has been working on the fusion of mapping and IT, to develop application programs that can help in making decisions more data driven, scientific and contextual. His journey as a young entrepreneur in Nepal has not only given him corporate success but also an international platform to showcase what he has been doing in Nepal in the global arena. His contribution in the design and development of dozens of technological solutions to contemporary problems in Nepal has been appreciated in national and international forums. He and his team have received both national and international awards for their work including AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Operations Award 2018 for the important disaster risk reduction work that their team carried out with international partners Medair and Terrasense after the earthquake of 2015.

Mr Kuber Kumar Shrestha

Kuber Kumar Shrestha is a Community health supervisor for DrOTS Nepal in Pyuthan district. An Intermediate in Arts, Kuber completed CTEVT as Community Medicine Auxiliary from CTEVT Daunnedevi Health Training center.

Kuber previously worked as a volunteer in Kalika Bikash Kendra and Nepal Water for Health in Pyuthan. He later joined BNMT as a volunteer for TB REACH Wave 5. His passion is to play a vital role in improving community health and fight against TB which has been a huge health problem in our society.

Mr Bishal Subedi

Mr. Bishal Subedi is a young, energetic and committed public health professional, working in government health system of Nepal as a Senior Public Health Officer with extensive expertise in district health management with excellent coordination and leadership skills.

He has wide experience in planning, organizing, implementing and evaluating various public health programs, projects and events beyond the government sectors too. He is able to work well in self-managed and team based environment. As a health professional, he has a deep interest towards providing quality health services in various public health programs including Tuberculosis Control Program.

Mr Hem Bahadur Tamang

Hem Bahadur Tamang is a junior drone pilot at DrOTS with 6 months of flying experience of different models of DJI drones. He has been a keen drone enthusiast and have been building DIY drones since 5 years. Currently, he is studying Bachelor in Education (B.Ed) in Pyuthan District.