Our story

Madiro is the Shona word for “Desire.” Shona is one of the main languages spoken in Zimbabwe. This name was chosen as a tribute to Desire.

Desire was a beautiful little boy whom Gillian met at the orphanage where she worked in Harare, Zimbabwe. Desire was not an orphan. His mother was suffering from AIDS dementia and could no longer care for him. Gillian was there when he was first brought to the orphanage. He spent the first few days heartbroken at the separation from his mother: inconsolably crying and refusing to eat. He soon became ill and was admitted at a nearby hospital. Because he was all alone, Gillian visited him every day and they quickly developed a close bond. The other caregivers on the ward took to calling Gillian “Mai Desire,” meaning mother of Desire. Devastatingly, with Gillian at his side, Desire passed away on June 2, 2001.

Desire will never be forgotten. We hope that Madiro will help prevent other children from a similar fate and allow them to lead healthy, fulfilling lives.

- Gillian Morantz and Adrian Schauer

Gillian hugging Desire beside a crib
In Memoriam, Desire: August 24, 1999-June 2, 2001

Our Team

Team Members

Adrian Schauer
Founder & Technology Advisor
Montreal, Canada

Adrian Schauer is the founder and CEO of AlayaCare, a healthtech company delivering the next disruptive solution for the home healthcare industry by combining remote patient monitoring, clinical documentation and back office software. Adrian is a serial technology entrepreneur having built two successful mobile software companies; both achieving leadership positions in their respective markets. Adrian is also an active Angel Investor and sits on the boards of several companies including fast growing technology firms like the point-of-care medical device company Chipcare, the SaaS company TrackTik, and the GRC software provider Resolver.

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Dr. Gillian Morantz
Founder & Pediatrics Advisor
Montreal, Canada

Dr Gillian Morantz is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University. Her clinical and research focus is primarily on children new to Canada and in child protection. She has previously volunteered or worked in a research capacity in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Kenya and Haiti. She is the co-Director of the McGill Department of Pediatrics' Global Child Health Program which oversees medical education in global child health and collaborations with partners in low-income countries. She is also the co-Director of the Social Pediatrics Program which provides exposure for trainees to the medical care of children living in socially vulnerable contexts.

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James Fraser
CEO
Toronto, Canada

James Fraser is a Director and former President and CEO of ChipCare Corp., a Toronto based company developing a Point-of-Care Diagnostic platform for sexually transmitted diseases. Founder, President and CEO of Dignitas International from 2002 to 2012. Dignitas developed innovation to scale life-saving HIV and TB treatment in hard to reach communities.  From 1996 to 2002, worked with Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in multiple roles in some of the world’s most difficult conflicts including Chechnya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Colombia. Education: Joint Specialist B.A. in International Relations and Peace & Conflict Studies, and a Master of Political Science / Public Administration from the University of Toronto. Canada’s Top 40 under 40, Grand Challenges Canada Star in Global Health, Rotary Paul Harris Fellow.

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Leah Ekbladh
Director of Partnerships
Cambridge, USA

Leah is an experienced leader in global health innovation with a passion for supporting health tech entrepreneurs in emerging markets meet the social needs of their countries and communities.  She has co-created programs that integrate global health development initiatives with local entrepreneurship, driving both market-shaping and sustainable change.

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Sharon Batamuriza
Fund Manager
Kigali, Rwanda

Sharon is a dynamic leader and strategist with a passion for driving transformative change across Africa’s technology and innovation landscape. With a wealth of experience spanning program management, business development, and strategic partnership cultivation, Sharon’s commitment is to use entrepreneurship as a vehicle to leverage technology for social impact, particularly within the African tech and startup ecosystem.

As the former Program Director of the HealthTech Hub Africa at Bridge For Billions, Sharon led the implementation of a pioneering accelerator program from the inception stage.

Having held key positions at Kountable, Sharon has demonstrated a knack for driving business expansion, piloting new initiatives, and fostering client success. With a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennington College, Vermont, Sharon brings a unique blend of academic rigor and practical expertise to every endeavor.

Fluent in Kinyarwanda, English, and Swahili, Sharon is recognized for her exceptional leadership acumen and commitment to driving positive change. With a track record of success and a passion for innovation, she continues to be a driving force in Africa’s entrepreneurial landscape.

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Dr Monique van Lettow
Director, Operational and Implementation Research
Rièzes, Belgium

Monique Van Lettow has 25+ years of field experience in developing countries and global health research with a broad background and expertise in the development, implementation and management of research projects in Malawi. She was formerly a Senior Research Scientist for Dignitas International, a medical and research organization, based in Malawi. Her research interests include Tuberculosis, TB/HIV integration, the prevention of mother-to-child transmission and HIV transmission and prevention in adolescents.

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Michaël Bontyes
Director, Digital Health & Technology
Montreal, Canada

When one of the websites that he built in high school helped the immigration faith of a friend, Michaël realized how tech and data can support great initiatives when thoughtfully used. Since then, he has turned that natural interest in engineering and people into more than a decade of collaboration with fantastic teams from all continents.

Before joining Madiro, he had been working with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) since 2009 at headquarters in Toronto, Brussels, and Tokyo. Lately, he also served as a Technical Lead for their digital health team in New York where he contributed to Electronic Medical Records implementations in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Previously, he led and delivered many digital projects for large organizations as a Technical Architect for Edelman, a digital agency in Montreal. In parallel, he has been actively involved in open-source communities, including products recognized as Digital Public Goods like OpenMRS and Bahmni.

As a tough-minded optimist passionated about innovation, his career thread has been to optimize organizational and technical strategies to be more sustainable, impactful, and scalable. Today, Michaël is exploring emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to improve access to healthcare and support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

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Alka Chaudhary
Finance & Operations Manager
Toronto, Canada

Alka Chaudhary is a bookkeeping professional with 6.5 years of progressive work experience across multiple geographies. Prior to her current role she has worked as an accountant handling accounts payable systems & processes for different clients at Infosys Technologies working with internal and external stakeholders. She is a multitasker and is always keen to learn new things. She holds an MBA degree in HR & Marketing and a bachelor’s degree in commerce. She is currently pursuing a 200-hour yoga teacher training course as she believes in the power of yoga to transform lives.

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Joshua Nsereko
OpenMRS Developer
Kampala, Uganda

After high school, Joshua Nsereko interacted with a strong developer who shared interesting information about software development. He gave Joshua some programming resources that led him to start contributing to OpenMRS before joining University. Since his childhood dream was being a medical worker, OpenMRS aligned very well with Joshua's interests. For the past 5 years, he has continuously contributed to its frontend, backend, QA, documentation, etc, together with participating in its fellowship and Google programs, mentoring new comers and interpolating it with other systems during implementations. Joshua's love for open source increases each day and he has extended his contribution to other communities like ODK, Apache, CNCF, crane cloud, etc to learn more tools and technologies.

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Pius Rubangakene
OpenMRS Developer
Kampala, Uganda

Pius Rubangakene is a Software Engineer became interested in programming while trying to customize QuickBooks to handle accounting transactions for his Dad's small business. With the sparked interest, he decided to pursue a Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering at the University where he joined a retail startup. He later on joined a FinTech in 2017 where he worked with a diversified team building banking software for unbanked institutions such as SACCOs, Microfinance institutions(MFIs) and savings groups. In 2021, he joined the OpenMRS community and has since then contributed to different packages for OpenMRS 3.x platform as well as working on the OpenMRS HIV Reference Implementation (OHRI) project.

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Board

Adrian Schauer
Founder & Technology Advisor
Montreal, Canada

Adrian Schauer is the founder and CEO of AlayaCare, a healthtech company delivering the next disruptive solution for the home healthcare industry by combining remote patient monitoring, clinical documentation and back office software. Adrian is a serial technology entrepreneur having built two successful mobile software companies; both achieving leadership positions in their respective markets. Adrian is also an active Angel Investor and sits on the boards of several companies including fast growing technology firms like the point-of-care medical device company Chipcare, the SaaS company TrackTik, and the GRC software provider Resolver.

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Dr. Adrienne Chan
Infectious Diseases Physician & Associate Professor of Medicine
Toronto, Canada

Dr. Adrienne Chan is an Infectious Diseases physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada. Dr. Chan’s areas of interest include HIV care and treatment decentralization in low resource settings, innovative task-shifting models in human resources for health, and health systems impacts of emerging infections (Ebola and COVID-19). She holds a cross-appointment to the Clinical Public Health Division at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, where she has taught on Health Systems Management in International Settings. Over the last 15 years, Dr. Chan has worked in southern Africa with clinical experience in Malawi, Lesotho, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe, and multiple research collaborations with regional and international networks. From 2007-2019, Dr. Chan worked for Dignitas International as the organization’s Medical Coordinator in Malawi and then as Medical Advisor. She served as a clinical consultant for the WHO during the West Africa Ebola Outbreak and currently serves on the volunteer Board of Directors of Partners in Health Canada.

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Efosa Ojomo
Director of Prosperity at the Clayton Christensen Institute
Boston, USA

Efosa Ojomo is Director of the Global Prosperity group at the Clayton Christensen Institute, where he leads research on how market-creating innovations can transform economies and improve lives. He also sits on the investment committee of the Ventures Platform Fund, supporting investment decisions for a $40M portfolio focused on scalable African innovations. Efosa is the co-author of the acclaimed book The Prosperity Paradox, which challenges traditional approaches to development and offers a new framework for unlocking prosperity.

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Jean Philbert Nsengimana (Phil)
Chief Digital Health Advisor at Africa CDC
Kigali, Rwanda

Jean Philbert Nsengimana (Phil) is the Chief Digital Health Advisor at Africa CDC. He also serves as a special advisor to the Commons Project and the Digital Impact Alliance, working to unlock the full potential of technology and data for Africa's prosperity. Prior to those roles, he served as the Minister of Youth and ICT in the Government of Rwanda for 6 years. During his tenure, he spearheaded the SmartAfrica Alliance and YouthConnektAfrica – two pan African organizations focused on accelerating digital transformation and youth empowerment.  

 

Phil holds a Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a Global MBA in InformationTechnology from the SP Jain School of Global Management in Singapore, a Masters in Software Engineering and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Rwanda. He serves on many other boards including the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership, IntraHealthInternational, Place Fund, International Center of Expertise in Montreal on Artificial Intelligence (CEIMIA) and StartUpAfrica.

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Monica Kahindo
Co-Chair, Fundraising Task Force
Toronto, Canada

Monica has been fundraising in the non-profit sector in Canada over the last 15 years. She started her career in fundraising working at UNICEF Canada in donor relations. She has spent the last 5 years focused on major gifts, building log-term relationships with donors and connecting them to the work they invest in. Monica is a dual citizen of Canada and Uganda. She is passionate about increasing the quality of life and access to opportunity in Africa and sees her work with Madiro as an enabler for just that. Through her career, Monica has built expertise in major gift fundraising, volunteer management, gender-based fundraising and currently, exploring the intersection of blockchain + philanthropy.

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Advisors

Adrian Schauer

Co-Founder & Chair, Investment Committee; Serial Entrepreneur & Healthtech Innovator

Dr. Gillian Morantz

Co-Founder; Medical Doctor & Global Health Expert

Monica Kahindo

Board Member; Philanthropy & Partnerships Advisor

Anouk Hilti-Zingg

Impact Investor, Global Connector & Lead, Madiro Switzerland

Gerhard Pries

Founder & Executive Chair, Sarona Asset Management; Pioneer in Blended Finance and Emerging Market Impact Investing

Michael Flux

Wealth Advisor, Connor, Clark & Lunn Private Capital; Chair, Development Task Force, Madiro

James Fraser

President & CEO, Madiro; Managing Director, Philanthropic Impact Fund

Sharon Batamuriza

Portfolio & Fund Manager; Lead on Investment Operations and Due Diligence

Thomas Laporte Aust

Legal Counsel; Senior Business Lawyer providing pro bono support to Madiro

Where to find us

World map with pins placed on Canada, the USA, Rwanda and Switzerland

Madiro operates through a distributed network across Africa, working directly with founders, health systems, and ecosystem partners to maximize impact where it matters most. We are registered with permanent staff in Canada, the United States of America, Switzerland and Rwanda.

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