Prof. David Mukunya is an Associate Professor of Maternal and Child Health at Busitema University, Uganda. Working with local and international partners, he has coordinated several trials evaluating the effectiveness and real-world impact of complex public health interventions — including the Survival-Plus, BabyGel, SoBiCOL, and SSOSS trials — work that has both advanced evidence-based care and grounded his teaching of research methods. He has published over 150 manuscripts, holds a Google Scholar h-index of 30, and has supervised more than twenty master's students and two PhD students to completion.

Prof. Mukunya's current work sits at the intersection of health research and digital innovation. He has begun embedding artificial intelligence and machine-learning methods in his analyses and recently developed an application that predicts the need for neonatal resuscitation — bringing predictive modelling to the point of care in a low-resource setting. His engagement with digital tools also extends to health professions education: as faculty and co-investigator on training grants including the HEPI-SHSSU and ENRICH projects, he developed an interest in medical education that led him to publish some of the first papers on AI use in medical education in Uganda. His plenary contribution draws on this dual perspective — rigorous clinical-trial science and the emerging application of AI — to speak to the promise and the practical realities of digital transformation for health research, education, and service delivery in Africa.