Professor at UoG

Binyam Tilahun is the leader of the Center for Digital Health and Implementation Science (CDHi), He is a Professor of Digital Health and Implementation Sciences at the Institute of Public Health at the University of Gondar. He currently leads different global health informatics projects in the area of eHealth, mHealth, and Big Health Data and data use with funding from major national and international organizations including- the World Health Organization(WHO), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), European Union, Ethiopian Ministry of Health, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Grand Challenges Ethiopia and others. His projects mostly focus on national-level capacity building and technical assistance for sustainable health information systems, and community-based innovations with a vision of improving clinical services and health system strengthening through low-cost, scalable digital health solutions in remote settings of Ethiopia.

He recently completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia in Canada where he worked on a Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) funded Global Implementation science research project. This Comprehensive Five-year Implementation Science research is one of the biggest mHealth implementation science research projects globally, that aims to identify barriers and facilitators of thirteen mHealth projects in North America and Africa using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Science (CFIR).

Professor Tilahun has a PhD in Medical Informatics from the University of Münster, Germany (2016), a Master of Science degree under the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship from Consortium of three universities in Europe (University of Juame I-Spain, University of Lisbon-Portugal and University of Munster-Germany) (2012) and another master’s degree in Public Health with Health Informatics specialization from the University of Gondar(2010).

Professor Tilahun worked in Health information systems on three continents for the last 12 years and he has a solid background both in informatics and Public health, with specific training and expertise in Health Informatics and implementation sciences. He has a special interest and passion in national-level capacity building and, in training young health informaticians for a sustainable impact on the health information system of the country. With this strong vision, he, with his colleagues, developed the first bachelor’s level training program in East Africa in 2012. As of this year (2018), 56 students already graduated with this training curriculum and are working at different levels of the health system. Currently, more than 300 students are in training. He also leads the development of the first PhD in Public Health Informatics program in Africa in which, already three fellows from the Ministry of Health and Universities enrolled.

He is currently leading the Capacity Building and Mentorship Project(CBMP)- a three-year collaborative project with the Federal Ministry of Health to provide capacity building and mentorship in the implementation of the information revolution agenda in Amhara and Benshangul Gumuz regions. He is also collaborating with FMOH and John Snow Inc. under the Gates Foundation and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant to expand undergraduate health informatics education to other 10 Universities in Ethiopia with the vision of training 2000 bachelor level, 80 masters level and 10 PhD level health informatics professionals in the coming five years.