about

Dr. Kishan Kariippanon (@youthhealth20) - Founder

Kishan was born in Malaysia and has been a health activist and humanitarian since his youth. He went to Siberia at 17 as a volunteer in community development programs and graduated from the St. Petersburg State Paediatric Medical Academy with a degree in medicine and qualifications in paediatrics in 2004. He completed his medical training  in the Russian language (self taught) and underwent a summer training at a premier hospital in Vienna (after teaching himself basic German), Austria.

After almost 10 years in Russia, he returned to Malaysia and took up a position as a marketing consultant during the boom of the Malaysian wellness industry . Learning marketing and how the business world functioned was crucial to how the public health sector can incorporate some of the positive knowledge and experiences.

During the civil unrest in Timor Leste (2006), Kishan left his job to volunteer for the Bairo Pite Clinic under the supervision of Dr. Dan Murphy, where more than 100,000 Internally Displaced Persons were living in refugee camps. His work in Timor was shortened when he gained admission to the Monash University Master of Public Health program, which he graduated from in 2009.

He is a member of the Crikey Health and Medical Panel , a co-facilitator of the Healthcare and Social Media Australia New Zealand (#hcsmanz) Twitter conference and a TEDxDarwin 2011 speaker. He is also a recent alumnus of the ‘Persuasion Bootcamp’ by Dr. BJ Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab in Stanford University.

With qualifications in pediatrics, postgraduate training in public health and   social media, he is challenging the health system and pushing the boundaries of academia, public health and blogging.

In 2012 he will be continuing his work as a PhD student at the Menzies School of Health Research under Charles Darwin University in the field of Indigenous health and health communications technology.

Naysan Naraqi – Media Advisor

Naysan was born in the United States but grew up in Papua New Guinea, where his father the late Sir Dr. Sirus Naraqi (CBE ) worked in infectious disease. His childhood and youth is not of the ordinary. At a young age he became a producer at CNN in Atlanta and then left his job to use his skills in the field of international development.  He has lived and worked in countries including Israel, Brazil, Uganda and Timor Leste.

Keywords: health, health communication, social marketing, youth, adolescents, capacity building, web 2.0, social networking, social media, public health, health professionals, NGO, policy.