Dr. Mala Mawkin is a rising female star. She’s blitzed the healthcare and science fields as a medical doctor with a deep curiosity for technology to drive societal change. Dr. Mawkins champions dHealth initiatives that support patients’ ownership rights of their healthcare data and records in her native United Kingdom and worldwide. She advocates using web3 and the Metaverse as a force for good IRL.
She was featured on Forbes UK’s 30 Under 30 list, Vogue UK’s 10 Rising Female Stars 2018, Women of the Future UK Awards Finalist 2019, and named one of the “UK’s Most Influential People in Digital and Tech” in the 2021 BIMA 100 List, and is a noted TEDx Speaker. Dr. Mawkin has worked with brands such as Barbie, Nike and MAKERS to spotlight women in STEM, has featured in Vogue, HuffPost, and Financial Times, has written for The Guardian, Microsoft’s Blog and was a brand ambassador for The Times in the UK. Within charity and advocacy, Dr. Mawkin was a Trustee for the Medical Women’s Federation UK charity and is an active advisory board member for the Ideas Foundation, supporting diversity in STEM and the creative industries.
Prior to this, Dr. Mawkin was a medical doctor in the UK’s National Health Services (NHS) and worked at institutions such as the European Space Agency’s Space Medicine Office. She has also supported several start-ups, accelerators and tech research in the UK, United States and Africa. Dr. Mawkin has also worked at Malawi’s e-health programme, Harvard & Boston Children’s Hospital’s Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator and several tech companies in London, such as Touch Surgery (acquired by Medtronic). She has published health innovation research in leading publications, including the International Journal of General Medicine.
Through her role as host of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Digital Health Podcast, Dr. Mawkin most sharply focuses on her passions for medicine and technology. Boasting over 13,000 listeners in more than 95 countries, the series focuses on the intersection of health, web3 and the Metaverse. She is also a prominent speaker for ‘Women in Web 3.0’ events and has been interviewed on podcasts such as ‘Cut to the Crypto.’
“I truly believe that web3 will revolutionize patient care worldwide,” Dr. Mawkins shares. “I’m passionate about disseminating the latest information on dHealth to a wide audience. The pandemic has been a huge catalyst for the online delivery of healthcare and accessibility of services. We are getting more involved in our own healthcare, which is the rise in ‘consumer’-led healthcare. We have seen huge moves from pharma and retail to get involved in this shift to people taking responsibility for their own health, and the market shift is truly apparent.”
It is patient communities that are facilitating this market shift, she says. Patients come together to form online communities for peer-topeer support, and these are powerful groups directing and informing the growth of products and services within healthcare.
What healthcare looks like in the future is web3-powered: “access, community and a choice of online and in-person services – as well as adding in ownership and transparency for patients.”
Dr. Mawkin believes this transparency and ownership can be delivered through DAOs. Healthcare DAOs enable patients to fund communities they are interested in creating, building, developing, and researching services and treatments for their healthcare needs. Most importantly, patients own it – instead of it being centrally run.
“For example, as patients gain ownership of their health – what will that look like for the roadmap of research, treatments and services? Will patient outcomes ultimately improve?” Undoubtedly so, according to Dr. Mawkin. Blockchain for healthcare records has been bubbling for a while now, and healthcare research (e.g. psychedelic medicines and mental health products) via NFTs is a growing sector.
Dr. Mawkin remarks that web3 and the Metaverse will transform healthcare as much as web3 changes the internet. “This is a move for patient-led healthcare. And, technology is finally here to allow that to become a reality now.”
As an Associate at Outlier Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm and accelerator program investing in web3 founders, Dr. Mawkin supports founders to grow and accelerate in the web3 ecosystem – especially women and women leaders.
What she is most excited about in the future, she answers, is for the UK’s web3 space to keep expanding and see more women founders enter too. “I am also super excited to see how societal challenges (e.g. in health) can be solved or aided using this emerging technology.”
When asking Dr. Mawkin her definition of the Metaverse, she describes it as “a digital layer of reality.” This additional layer will reshape society across diverse sectors, she believes.
For now, though, user experience lacks ease-of-use to enable large scale adoption of web3 and the Metaverse. As user experience improves, web3 and the Metaverse technology will be seamlessly incorporated into daily life. “The possibilities are endless, and the potential for both economic and societal benefit is exponential,” Dr. Mawkins emphasizes.
Website: www.malamawkin.com
