(light upbeat music) >> Hey, everyone. Welcome back to theCUBE's day long coverage of Women in Data Science 2023. Live from Stanford University, I'm Lisa Martin. We've had some amazing conversations today with my wonderful co-host, as you've seen. Tracy Zhang joins me next for a very interesting and inspiring conversation. I know we've been bringing them to you, we're bringing you another one here. Dr. Irene Dankwa-Mullan joins us, the Chief Medical Officer at Marti Health, and a speaker at WIDS. Welcome, Irene, it's great to have you. >> Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for this opportunity. >> So you have an MD and a Master of Public Health. Covid must have been an interesting time for you, with an MPH? >> Very much so. >> Yeah, talk a little bit about you, your background, and Marti Health? This is interesting. This is a brand new startup. This is a digital health equity startup. >> Yes, yes. So, I'll start with my story a little bit about myself. So I was actually born in Ghana. I finished high school there and came here for college. What would I say? After I finished my undergraduate, I went to medical school at Dartmouth and I always knew I wanted to go into public health as well as medicine. So my medical education was actually five years. I did the MPH and my medical degree, at the same time, I got my MPH from Yale School of Public Health. And after I finished, I trained in internal medicine, Johns Hopkins, and after that I went into public health. I am currently living in Maryland, so I'm in Bethesda, Maryland, and that's where I've been. And really enjoyed public health, community health, combining that aspect of sort of prevention and wellness and also working in making sure that we have community health clinics and safety net clinics. So a great experience there. I also had the privilege, after eight years in public health, I went to the National Institute of Health. >> Oh, wow. >> Where I basically worked in clinical research, basically on minority health and health disparities. So, I was in various leadership roles and helped to advance the science of health equity, working in collaboration with a lot of scientists and researchers at the NIH, really to advance the science. >> Where did your interest in health equity come from? Was there a defining moment when you were younger and you thought "There's a lot of inequities here, we have to do something about this." Where did that interest start? >> That's a great question. I think this influence was basically maybe from my upbringing as well as my family and also what I saw around me in Ghana, a lot of preventable diseases. I always say that my grandfather on my father's side was a great influence, inspired me and influenced my career because he was the only sibling, really, that went to school. And as a result, he was able to earn enough money and built, you know, a hospital. >> Oh wow. >> In their hometown. >> Oh my gosh! >> It started as a 20 bed hospital and now it's a 350 bed hospital. >> Oh, wow, that's amazing! >> In our hometown. And he knew that education was important and vital as well for wellbeing. And so he really inspired, you know, his work inspired me. And I remember in residency I went with a group of residents to this hospital in Ghana just to help over a summer break. So during a summer where we went and helped take care of the sick patients and actually learned, right? What it is like to care for so many patients and- >> Yeah. >> It was really a humbling experience. But that really inspired me. I think also being in this country. And when I came to the U.S. and really saw firsthand how patients are treated differently, based on their background or socioeconomic status. I did see firsthand, you know, that kind of unconscious bias. And, you know, drew me to the field of health disparities research and wanted to learn more and do more and contribute. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, I was curious. Just when did the data science aspect tap in? Like when did you decide that, okay, data science is going to be a problem solving tool to like all the problems you just said? >> Yeah, that's a good question. So while I was at the NIH, I spent eight years there, and precision medicine was launched at that time and there was a lot of heightened interest in big data and how big data could help really revolutionize medicine and healthcare. And I got the opportunity to go, you know, there was an opportunity where they were looking for physicians or deputy chief health officer at IBM. And so I went to IBM, Watson Health was being formed as a new business unit, and I was one of the first deputy chief health officers really to lead the data and the science evidence. And that's where I realized, you know, we could really, you know, the technology in healthcare, there's been a lot of data that I think we are not really using or optimizing to make sure that we're taking care of our patients. >> Yeah. >> And so that's how I got into data science and making sure that we are building technologies using the right data to advance health equity. >> Right, so talk a little bit about health equity? We mentioned you're with Marti Health. You've been there for a short time, but Marti Health is also quite new, just a few months old. Digital health equity, talk about what Marti's vision is, what its mission is to really help start dialing down a lot of the disparities that you talked about that you see every day? >> Yeah, so, I've been so privileged. I recently joined Marti Health as their Chief Medical Officer, Chief Health Officer. It's a startup that is actually trying to promote a value-based care, also promote patient-centered care for patients that are experiencing a social disadvantage as a result of their race, ethnicity. And were starting to look at and focused on patients that have sickle cell disease. >> Okay. >> Because we realize that that's a population, you know, we know sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder. It impacts a lot of patients that are from areas that are endemic malaria. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And most of our patients here are African American, and when, you know, they suffer so much stigma and discrimination in the healthcare system and complications from their sickle cell disease. And so what we want to do that we feel like sickle cell is a litmus test for disparities. And we want to make sure that they get in patient-centered care. We want to make sure that we are leveraging data and the research that we've done in sickle cell disease, especially on the continent of Africa. >> Okay. >> And provide, promote better quality care for the patients. >> That's so inspiring. You know, we've heard so many great stories today. Were you able to watch the keynote this morning? >> Yes. >> I loved how it always inspires me. This conference is always, we were talking about this all day, how you walk in the Arrillaga Alumni Center here where this event is held every year, the vibe is powerful, it's positive, it's encouraging. >> Inspiring, yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Inspiring. >> Yeah, yeah. >> It's a movement, WIDS is a movement. They've created this community where you feel, I don't know, kind of superhuman. "Why can't I do this? Why not me?" We heard some great stories this morning about data science in terms of applications. You have a great application in terms of health equity. We heard about it in police violence. >> Yes. >> Which is an epidemic in this country for sure, as we know. This happens too often. How can we use data and data science as a facilitator of learning more about that, so that that can stop? I think that's so important for more people to understand all of the broad applications of data science, whether it's police violence or climate change or drug discovery or health inequities. >> Irene: Yeah. >> The potential, I think we're scratching the surface. But the potential is massive. >> Tracy: It is. >> And this is an event that really helps women and underrepresented minorities think, "Why not me? Why can't I get involved in that?" >> Yeah, and I always say we use data to make an make a lot of decisions. And especially in healthcare, we want to be careful about how we are using data because this is impacting the health and outcomes of our patients. And so science evidence is really critical, you know? We want to make sure that data is inclusive and we have quality data. >> Yes. >> And it's transparent. Our clinical trials, I always say are not always diverse and inclusive. And if that's going to form the evidence base or data points then we're doing more harm than good for our patients. And so data science, it's huge. I mean, we need a robust, responsible, trustworthy data science agenda. >> "Trust" you just brought up "trust." >> Yeah. >> I did. >> When we talk about data, we can't not talk about security and privacy and ethics but trust is table stakes. We have to be able to evaluate the data and trust in it. >> Exactly. >> And what it says and the story that can be told from it. So that trust factor is, I think, foundational to data science. >> We all see what happened with Covid, right? I mean, when the pandemic came out- >> Absolutely. >> Everyone wanted information. We wanted data, we wanted data we could trust. There was a lot of hesitancy even with the vaccine. >> Yeah. >> Right? And so public health, I mean, like you said, we had to do a lot of work making sure that the right information from the right data was being translated or conveyed to the communities. And so you are totally right. I mean, data and good information, relevant data is always key. >> Well- >> Is there any- Oh, sorry. >> Go ahead. >> Is there anything Marti Health is doing in like ensuring that you guys get the right data that you can put trust in it? >> Yes, absolutely. And so this is where we are, you know, part of it would be getting data, real world evidence data for patients who are being seen in the healthcare system with sickle cell disease, so that we can personalize the data to those patients and provide them with the right treatment, the right intervention that they need. And so part of it would be doing predictive modeling on some of the data, risk, stratifying risk, who in the sickle cell patient population is at risk of progressing. Or getting, you know, they all often get crisis, vaso-occlusive crisis because the cells, you know, the blood cell sickles and you want to avoid those chest crisis. And so part of what we'll be doing is, you know, using predictive modeling to target those at risk of the disease progressing, so that we can put in preventive measures. It's all about prevention. It's all about making sure that they're not being, you know, going to the hospital or the emergency room where sometimes they end up, you know, in pain and wanting pain medicine. And so. >> Do you see AI as being a critical piece in the transformation of healthcare, especially where inequities are concerned? >> Absolutely, and and when you say AI, I think it's responsible AI. >> Yes. >> And making sure that it's- >> Tracy: That's such a good point. >> Yeah. >> Very. >> With the right data, with relevant data, it's definitely key. I think there is so much data points that healthcare has, you know, in the healthcare space there's fiscal data, biological data, there's environmental data and we are not using it to the full capacity and full potential. >> Tracy: Yeah. >> And I think AI can do that if we do it carefully, and like I said, responsibly. >> That's a key word. You talked about trust, responsibility. Where data science, AI is concerned- >> Yeah. >> It has to be not an afterthought, it has to be intentional. >> Tracy: Exactly. >> And there needs to be a lot of education around it. Most people think, "Oh, AI is just for the technology," you know? >> Yeah, right. >> Goop. >> Yes. >> But I think we're all part, I mean everyone needs to make sure that we are collecting the right amount of data. I mean, I think we all play a part, right? >> We do. >> We do. >> In making sure that we have responsible AI, we have, you know, good data, quality data. And the data sciences is a multi-disciplinary field, I think. >> It is, which is one of the things that's exciting about it is it is multi-disciplinary. >> Tracy: Exactly. >> And so many of the people that we've talked to in data science have these very non-linear paths to get there, and so I think they bring such diversity of thought and backgrounds and experiences and thoughts and voices. That helps train the AI models with data that's more inclusive. >> Irene: Yes. >> Dropping down the volume on the bias that we know is there. To be successful, it has to. >> Definitely, I totally agree. >> What are some of the things, as we wrap up here, that you're looking forward to accomplishing as part of Marti Health? Like, maybe what's on the roadmap that you can share with us for Marti as it approaches the the second half of its first year? >> Yes, it's all about promoting health equity. It's all about, I mean, there's so much, well, I would start with, you know, part of the healthcare transformation is making sure that we are promoting care that's based on value and not volume, care that's based on good health outcomes, quality health outcomes, and not just on, you know, the quantity. And so Marti Health is trying to promote that value-based care. We are envisioning a world in which everyone can live their full life potential. Have the best health outcomes, and provide that patient-centered precision care. >> And we all want that. We all want that. We expect that precision and that personalized experience in our consumer lives, why not in healthcare? Well, thank you, Irene, for joining us on the program today. >> Thank you. >> Talking about what you're doing to really help drive the volume up on health equity, and raise awareness for the fact that there's a lot of inequities in there we have to fix. We have a long way to go. >> We have, yes. >> Lisa: But people like you are making an impact and we appreciate you joining theCUBE today and sharing what you're doing, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you- >> Thank you for having me here. >> Oh, our pleasure. For our guest and Tracy Zhang, this is Lisa Martin from WIDS 2023, the eighth Annual Women in Data Science Conference brought to you by theCUBE. Stick around, our show wrap will be in just a minute. Thanks for watching. (light upbeat music)

>> Narrator: Live from San Diego, California, it's The Cube! Covering Cisco Live U.S. 2019. Brought to you by Cisco and it's eco system partners. >> Welcome back to the Cube's coverage of Cisco Live, Day 3 from buzzy, sunny San Diego. I'm Lisa Martin, my co-host is Stu Miniman and Stu and I are pleased to welcome to the Cube Stephanie Wible, Senior Product Manager, hybrid networking and SD-WAN, from CenturyLink. Stephanie, welcome to the Cube! >> Thank you, I'm glad to be here. >> Yeah, so welcome to the buzzy dev nut zone. This place has been buzzing for three days now. >> It is definitely an active session over here today. >> It is, so let's talk about SD-WAN. We've heard a lot the last few days about the massive transformations to the network. Changing customer demands, changing customer needs, talk to us about the SD-WAN marketplace, overall. >> So we don't have a conversation with any of our customers these days that don't include some kind of a conversation about SD-WAN. Everybody is looking to transform their networks and their looking for the next best thing. They're also trying future-proof their networks. Some of the customer drivers that we see are folks looking to augment existing MPLS networks with lower cost access, making the best use of their assets, both from an equipment perspective as well as a network perspective. And then having that sort of centralized command and control capability that SD-WAN provides them. >> Alright, so Stephanie the SD-WAN space, while most customers are familiar with it, it's not a monolithic space. It's not like there's five products on the market and there all very similar. There's a few different areas and even Cisco has two primary products that your offering. Can you give us a little bit about the lay of the land as to what use cases there are for the various pieces? How do you decide which there are? Or I know I've talked to customers that have had multiple SD-WAN solutions. >> That's a good point. So, when we initially started looking at SD-WAN, we kind of did a RFI on about 15 or so different vendors. The market has compressed a little bit since then through acquisitions and mergers but we at CenturyLink, in particular, recognized that one size does not fit all for all customers. So we wanted to offer a choice of services for our customers and most of the vendors have very similar kind of capability but some have other features that some don't. For example, the Meraki one, we typically have our branch customers, our customers that have many homogenous kind of like sites that they want something simple and something easy and not something that has a lot of bells and whistles. That's a perfect fit for them. It's very easy to install and get it up and running. Where something like Viptela that has a lot more capability and a lot more customization available would be perfect for some of our larger customers. The Telepher, for example, is we have a large install base of customers already using Cisco gear, the ASR and the ISR, where that's very attractive to those folks where they can just lay the software on top of their existing assets without having to do a full network swap out. And then our other option is our Versa which was our initial launch which was in 2016. Again, that's a full-featured SD-WAN capability. So it kind of depends and we try to bring the customers and have that conversation. Understand what theirs drivers are so that we can help tailor them and select and help them select one of the options that we have. >> Yeah I have to imagine that most of the time you're really helping the customer down there. It's not, "Okay there's a catalog, choose which one." That's some of the reason we would go to a CenturyLink is so that you listen to them, understand that, and you've helped filter a lot of that for them and maybe get them down to some of the just what size they're buying. >> Yep, and its not just the vendors. The pure play vendors talk about we call it the tip of the iceberg. So they talk about the SD-WAN capability. Where CenturyLink can add a lot of value to that is we also provide hybrid WAN solution and PLS, we also do. That's the public, the private section. And we recently, with the introduction of our SD-WAN services, started offering public connectivity in broadband and WIFI. So we can offer the mix of access along with the overlay service. We can be the single button to push for that but we also have had extensive history in managed services. So we have done managed routers and managed iads for our voice or data. And then the other big portion of that is we are a global provider, so for those customers looking to expand they're already in our global network. We've got one of the largest global backbones in the world. >> So let's give our audience a view from a customer who is in the process of needing to upgrade their network being able to future-proof it, as you said a few minutes ago, be ready for WIFI sites. Say it's a bank with many different retail branches. What would be the ideal solution for them? Would it be something more like Viptela that, is that more customizable? That in one branch you might need a much smaller pipe than you do in a much larger branch? What goes through that for a customer that's going through that upgrade process to modernize their network? >> Yep, so we try to have our technical experts go in and sit down with the customer and kind of do a question and answer session and try to understand what their business drivers are, what solutions that they're trying to solve for, and provide guidance and expertise along that lines and try to suss out. We also have what we call a Transformation Workshop where we like to bring customers in and have a kind of in-depth conversation, one-on-one conversation, show them some of the demos of the services that we offer and try to suss out what their real requirements are. And then, again, we can offer solutions and say, "Hey, based on the footprint that you have, "based on the connectivity options that you want, "based on your time frame, based on your cost," all of those things are factors to where would direct a customer. >> So giving them sort of a prescriptive, customized pathway for that upgrade based on all the analysis about what they, what their current lay of their WAN looks like and where they want to get to. >> Exactly, exactly. >> So, Stephanie I knew you'd do those in-depth discussions with customers. One the great opportunities about a show like Cisco is you've got 28,000 people here coming by the booth, coming into to sessions, so you get to speed date on some of these things, but what are some of the top things that they're asking for? What are some of the pain points that your hearing from customers? Is SD-WAN one of the top things bringing them to you? Or what are some of those key conversations? >> SD-WAN is, that's been kind of the industry term and so everybody knows a little bit about it and the crazy part is a lot people coming in have really done their homework and know a lot about the differences between the different platforms. Security is at the top of everybody's mind and that is another really big driver that everybody wants to have a conversation about. Security, how can I get a security patches out to my endpoints faster and better and quicker? How do I integrate my security with an SD-WAN solution? And so we see those a lot. We have answers for those questions and we can help folks figure that out. >> So here we are at the 30th annual Cisco customer partner event. A lot of evolution in the last 30 years. A lot of work has been done by Cisco to transition from just a hardware network gear provider to hardware, now software. Challenging for large organizations with the history and the product depth and the networking expertise-- >> Absolutely. >> that a company like Cisco has. I want to get your opinion. You've been with CenturyLink for a long time. CenturyLink and Cisco also go way back. >> Stephanie: Yep >> What are some of the advantages is CenturyLink seeing by Cisco's transition to more of a software provider? >> Cisco's always been a great hardware provider partner for us and I hadn't worked in that space too much. However, the folks that we have been working with, both on the Meraki side and Viptela side, super responsive, super willing to help. They're always available. What questions can we answer? Can we get in? Is there training that we can provide? They've been great. Super partners to work with. >> In terms of the customer reaction though, is it giving you guys a leg up, an advantage, that there is more of a software lead approach of looking at an old legacy company that is much more modernized? If you think of how Cisco would compete with a born-in-the-cloud company, what is that kind of competitive advantage like for you guys? >> That's an interesting thing too. So where Cisco has traditionally been a hardware provider, a lot of our customers are very familiar. They're CCIE network certified. It's funny trying to get those folks over. Some are very, its usually the younger set that's willing to go the whole software designed route. So its a challenge. Some folks are very, very much old school and they want to stick with the hardware-based solutions and they don't want to move to the digital world. However, things, cloud computing and all the applications moving to the cloud is kind of forcing them there. So its kind of a slow cycle on some of those and then some of their smaller groups. And we, the early adopters were the ones that were, "Yeah, let's just jump in "and go directly the software route," so it's-- >> Yeah, Stephanie you bring up a great point. I used to give presentations and when you would talk about rollout of technology in the network world, we would measure it in a decade. >> Right, yeah. >> It was like, "Okay, here comes 10 gig and there's the standard "and here's the piece," and all the things like that. What are some of those drivers in your customers because are they moving? You know we found, in general, they are moving faster. Speed is one of the things that we talk about. That agility to be able to respond. So what are some of those drivers from your companies that your work with that's helping them refresh faster, look at new technologies, and be open to some change? >> I think it's just keeping up with the industry. Like you said, it used to take years to do things and now its changing on a monthly and a weekly basis. And people are, I think, they're a little bit scared. It's like if we don't do something, we're going to get left behind. And it, the industry, is kind of forcing people to make those changes. Cost driver is another one that we see and people having to hit their fiscal numbers and everything else like that. But network transformation is not a simple thing. It's not a quick go in, run something. It's something that requires a lot of planning, a lot of analysis, and you want to, what do the old carpenters say? You measure twice and cut once, right? You want to plan, you want to plan, you want to plan and then you implement. So it does take time and people are getting there. When we first start talking about SD-WAN there was a lot of talk, it was a lot of talk, it was a lot of talk, it was a lot of talk and all a sudden then you start seeing, and it seems to be speeding up. People wanting to make decisions. We've had people that have had experiences and have shared experiences, and I think that has helped people make their decisions to actually go. >> What are some of the factors, like security, as an accelerator of a business that maybe might be on the slower side to migrate and start moving to a multi-cloud? Which a lot of businesses live in. Security also just the threat of being Uber-ized by a smaller company that isn't taking advantage-- >> They can move fast. >> Right, of whether it's network automation, SD-WAN, taking advantage of the expansion of 5G. What are some of those, how are some of the security and some of those other threats, are they catalysts that you guys are leveraging with customers to help them understand why the transition is imperative? >> I think they are. I think the iPhones and the laptop devices where you can click and have that immediate user experience, that's starting to build people's expectations that you can get things that quickly. And for the old legacy companies that aren't willing to get in there and to start thinking about doing that migration and change, they will get left behind. It's just where the industry is today. >> Great, Stephanie, why don't I give you the, give us the take-away from Cisco Live. You know, Cisco plus CenturyLink, what's that mean for customers? >> I'm sorry, I didn't catch all, I'm sorry. >> Cisco plus CenturyLink, the take-away for customers. >> Yeah, we're great partners. We've been partners for years. We continue to be partners. I think we bring a great marriage of the SD-WAN services and our hybrid network and all of our managed services together. Lots of years of experience and we love helping our customers, both of us. We want to delight and provide that great customer experience. >> Well. Stephanie, it's been a pleasure to have you on the Cube talking about all things SD-WAN, marketplace, the drivers, the opportunities, and the benefits. We appreciate your time. >> Thanks so much you guys. Have a great show. >> Thank you. For Stu Miniman, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube Live from Cisco Live, San Diego. (electronic music)