In the program’s second quarter century, Dako seeks to put that wealth of local health care expertise in Botswana to greater use—both to reach more patients in Botswana, and to promote collaboration throughout Africa, with Botswana as a regional center of excellence.
“Not every single country can be excellent in every single thing,” he said. “There are unique challenges to Botswana that, perhaps, Ghana can learn from, and so forth.”
The program will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a large academic conference to be held November 12-13, 2026, in Gaborone to promote both this type of regional academic collaboration and global health partnership.
Dako explained, “I’m interested in essentially helping build a transnational group of organizations that have similar issues and concerns and shared history as well as shared destiny.”
These global health organizations can learn from shared challenges, as well. As just one example, take Dako’s specialty, radiology. In Botswana, the wait to receive results from an MRI scan could be several months or longer, due to capacity hurdles in both equipment and personnel. Additionally, most health care is concentrated in Gaborone and other major population centers, leaving many rural areas without easy and timely access to high-quality care.
“How do you innovate and come up with cost-effective solutions that are tailor-made to solve the particular problem in that particular context?” Dako asks. He is confident that investments in technology can help solve these thorny questions, along with what he calls a “frugal innovation” mindset.
Dako is excited about a new project using artificial intelligence to help automate the interpretation of medical imaging as well as to summarize medical text. He also foresees using telehealth and digital health to reach patients in sparsely populated areas, whether via direct patient appointments via cell phone video call, or via consultations between rural practitioners and specialists in cities.
Looking ahead to the future of the partnership, the program has several things working in its favor. Botswana has reached what Dako and Brooks term “middle-income” status, enabling the country to devote funding to building out a robust health infrastructure, which prioritizes technology. Because it is structured as an office of the University of Pennsylvania in Botswana, funding for the Botswana-UPenn Partnership remains within the institution, buffering it from disruptions that have affected other African health initiatives in the wake of U.S. federal funding cuts. Dako added that as a result, the program has been able to attract more grants, as well as funding from industry and foundations.
With this wellspring of support, he envisions making the program a “completely multidisciplinary effort,” involving not only relationships with the Perelman School of Medicine and CHOP, but also with Penn’s schools of business, veterinary medicine, dentistry, and even the arts.
“The goal is to really redefine what health looks like—not just individual health, but societal well-being,” Dako said. “It’s not just about, ‘OK, how do we make sure people are not sick?’ We want people to achieve their truest potential.”