A physician by training, she served her country for 20 years before launching a healthtech startup that leverages artificial intelligence to detect and treat diseases.
Jaishree Naidoo (photo) is a South African pediatric radiologist and one of the pioneers of pediatric radiology in her country, graduating from the University of Cape Town in 2010. In 1999, she got a bachelor's degree in surgery from the Medical University of South Africa.
After a one-year internship at King Edward 8th Hospital in 1999, she served as Chief Medical Officer at Johannesburg General Hospital in 2000. The following year, she held the same position at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital before going back to the Johannesburg General Hospital as a radiology registrar. Four years later, in 2005, she joined the Donald Gordon Medical Center as a part-time radiologist.
In 2008, she was appointed as a Senior Radiology Specialist at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. From 2009 to 2010, she was a Pediatric Radiology Fellow at the Red Cross War Memorial Hospital before joining the Sandton Medi Clinic as a Radiology Specialist. In 2011, she was appointed head of pediatric radiology at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, and in 2017, she became head of radiology and chair of the academic committee at Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital.
Aside from her fulfilled professional career, Dr. Jaishree Naidoo is also a tech entrepreneur. In 2019, she co-founded Envisionit Deep AI, a healthtech startup she is leading as the CEO.
The startup uses artificial intelligence to streamline and improve medical imaging diagnosis. It designs various products including the Radify AI platform, which is said to provide fast, accurate, high-quality, and affordable medical imaging diagnostics needed to detect and treat diseases.
“RADIFY for chest x-rays was developed primarily because pneumonia is the number one cause of morbidity and mortality in children under the age of 5 in Africa.
A senseless statistic when it is a disease that is so easy to treat. With RADIFY, diagnostic healthcare can be made available where there is a lack of specialist expertise,” Dr. Naidoo explained in 2021.
The CEO is also a notable conference speaker. She has been invited to speak and chair sessions at many local and international radiology and healthcare conferences, such as the 2020 Forbes Women Africa event, where she was one of the speakers.
According to Forbes, Dr. Naidoo is one of “UK-Africa’s Top 15 African Female Tech Founders and as such was honored by MPs at the UK Houses of Parliament in January 2020 in London.”
In 2020, her startup, Envisionit Deep AI, won two categories (Healthtech and social impact) at Apps Africa Innovation Awards. It was also one of the Season 2022 Regional Winners of the African Startup Awards. On February 23, 2023, it raised $1.65 million to continue its development in South Africa and beyond.
Melchior Koba
