Despite rapid advances in digital health, significant inequities persist in how technologies are designed, implemented, and governed. Women in remote and rural areas have historically been excluded from access to quality sexual reproductive and maternal health services. Many digital health tools are created without meaningful involvement of the communities they aim to serve, resulting in solutions that sometimes fail to address their needs, exclude marginalized populations, and risk reinforcing existing health disparities. In low-resource, Indigenous, and marginalized settings, limited infrastructure, lack of contextual adaptation, and top-down approaches often prevent digital innovations from being inclusive, sustainable, or impactful.

Furthermore, health systems frequently lack the authority and autonomy to shape technologies to their specific needs, undermining their capacity to govern tools that should protect and uphold the rights of all populations. The Digital and Global Health Lab seeks to foster co-created, context-sensitive, evidence informed and sustainable innovations that empower rural and indigenous communities and strengthen health systems through equitable digital transformation.