About Us
Who are we?
We are Engineers. Physicians. Designers. Scientists. United under the mission of bringing mobile health to the underserved.
Anjna was founded by Vineet Singal and Donovan Barfield while they were undergraduates at Stanford University. Growing up in a low-income household gave Donovan firsthand experience on the need for free healthcare. For Vineet, his childhood obesity meant years of bullying and struggle but ultimately led him to overcome Type II diabetes and lose 80 pounds in the process. His personal history inspired Vineet to take time off from Stanford to volunteer at a free clinic in Galveston, TX, a city ravaged by a Category 4 hurricane and the 2008 economic crisis. His work with the underserved community in Galveston highlighted the crippling long-term effects that chronic diseases have on low-income, uninsured patients.
Vineet returned to Stanford with a commitment to make a difference. His research led him to the clear conclusion that low-income individuals are far more likely to be diagnosed with a chronic disease (diabetes, hypertension, asthma etc) while disproportionately lacking access to health literacy and healthy lifestyle options. The result is low medication compliance (<50%), a 50% higher risk of hospitalization and a 4x higher cost to the healthcare system overall. Finding few existing solutions, Vineet ultimately decided to attack this problem himself. He co-founded Anjna with his friend Donovan and they recruited students and faculty from Stanford and Berkeley to help support their mission. Upon graduation, Vineet decided to turn down a full scholarship to a top-tier medical school to continue to pursue his passion as Anjna's CEO.
Vineet Singal
Chief Executive Officer
Vineet is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, a Staples/Ashoka Global Youth Social Entrepreneur, Donald A. Strauss Scholar, Goldwater Scholar, Haas Public Service Fellow, Irene and Eric Simon Foundation Fellow, DoSomething/AT&T Fellow, and an NIH Training Award Fellow. He has also served on the Stanford University Board of Trustees and Clinic by the Bay Board of Directors. He graduated with University Distinction from Stanford University with a degree in Biological Sciences.
Manuel Rivera
Chief Operating Officer
Manuel comes to Anjna to lead its product management and technical integration with a passion for work on the IT side of health care and expertise with computer graphics, real-time client-server communication and interaction design. Manuel has an MS in Telecommunication Engineering from the Technical School of Madrid (UPM) with a specialty in Biomedical Engineering and has studied the social impact of technology at UC Berkeley.
James Pan
Chief Research Officer
James works with clinical staff at partner organizations to assess need, determine desired outcomes, and to create a working theory of change to build a better relationship between patients and their healthcare providers. James develops a ‘out of the box’ kit for seamless integration of Anjna’s services into partner organizations. He was previously a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health, graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University and will be a MD candidate at Stanford School of Medicine starting in August 2013.
Nicolas Milagro Chapa
Mobile UX Designer
Nicolas is the lead mobile designer for Anjna. Nicolas also works as the Mobile Team Lead for the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. He manages the Mobile Messaging Testbed for the lab, in conjunction with Mobile Commons. He was instrumental in refining the user experience for Juntos Finanzas, a company dedicated to helping unbanked Latinos save more money. Nicolas graduated with a degree in American Literature and Culture from UCLA.
Board of Directors
Wilfred Jager Partner, Three Arch Partners (Chair)
Harsh Patel Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Foundation Capital
Sabrina Ross Ropes & Gray, LLP
Brian Discoll Former VP for Advancement, Health Leads
Stuart Burden Consultant/Philanthropy Adviser
Advisers
Don Kennedy, PhD President Emeritus, Stanford University
Arnold Milstein, MD Stanford Medical School (Internal Medicine)
Heather Kun, PhD VP of Research and Evaluation, National Health Foundation
Alan Glaseroff, MD Stanford Medical School
Robert Tranquada, MD Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California
Vicki Sant President, Summit Foundation
Ken Shachmut EVP/CFO, Safeway Health
The Platform
The Experience
