India, 14th April 2023: Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India, will be organizing the international Advisory Board of the Global Health program in conjunction with the Global Learning Symposium.

The Global Health Advisory Board (GAB) consists of professionals with diverse backgrounds in the private sector, NGOs, health-care consultancies, with the board overseeing the consortium of seven partnership universities. With Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of The Netherlands as Honorary Chair, the Board includes Dr Thijs Teeling Chair of the Advisory Board, (Netherlands), Dr Luis Barreto (Canada), Mary Heersink (USA), Dr Priscilla Reddy (South Africa), Jeff Mainland (Canada), and Elizabeth Witmer (Canada).

During the two-day international advisory board meeting which is to be held at MAHE, Manipal, the launch of the Global Health International Consortium website and logo is scheduled to take place on April 15th 2023 in the presence of esteemed dignitaries of MAHE including the Vice Chancellor, Lt. Gen. MD Venkatesh, Pro Vice Chancellor, Dr. Sharath Kumar Rao K, Registrar, Dr Giridhar Kini P, Director – International Relations, Dr. Karunakar Kotegar A and Director – Prasanna School of Public Health, Dr. Helmut Brand. In this event, Maj Gen (Prof) Atul Kotwal, SM, VSM (Retd.) Executive Director, National Health Systems Resource Centre, Government of India will be the guest speaker.

The board members will be joined by academic delegates from the partner universities including McMaster University (Canada), Maastricht University (The Netherlands), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (India), Ahfad University for Women (Sudan), University of South Eastern Norway (Norway), and the Universidad del Rosario (Colombia).

During the meeting, the attendees will discuss action-oriented research taking place across the partner universities and deliberate the program’s continued expansion. Following this, the alumni will further explain the relevance of the Global Health Program’s competencies in their current careers.

Lt. Gen. MD Venkatesh, the Vice Chancellor of MAHE says: “For the first time since the pandemic, the annual Global Health Learning Symposium will take place in Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), India from 16th -28th April , 2023 bringing together over 350 students and 37 faculty from various partner institutions in the Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Colombia, Thailand and Sudan. The symposium is driven by educational innovation and uses multiple modalities such as learning pods, cluster interaction, and transcontinental faculty.’’

Further to this Dr. Sharath Kumar Rao K, Pro Vice Chancellor elaborates: “Working in international teams allows the students to engage in a system mapping exercise which is designed to introduce them to varying systems while working in collaboration with a diversity of backgrounds, knowledge, and skills.