Goji: tackling diabetes though technology

I was part of a cross functional team of medical experts, designers and entrepreneurs bringing together resources form 3 continents to develop a solution to combat non-communicable diseases in North Africa, in one of several 0-1 ventures I helped build for NEOM,

Project at a Glance

• Role: Venture Designer, Facilitator, Research Strategist

• Team: 3 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, 4 Designers, 2 Subject Matter Experts

• Time: 16 weeks

• Output: Research-driven value propositions, risk-tested MVPs, GTM plan, financial model and final pitch deck.

Key Contributions:

• Developed team-wide alignment tools

• Recruited and onboarded local SMEs

• Negotiated $50K vendor savings

• Designed multi-lingual research ops

• Led synthesis of pain insights, value props, flows and prototypes

• Drove morale and meaning-making through creative workshop dynamics

Keywords

Venture design, strategic research, ecosystem and user journey mapping, value proposition testing, system design, stakeholder engagement, translation operations, GTM strategy, collaborative facilitation

Check out the quick summary below. To learn more about how I ended up dressing like a priest scroll down the page or get in touch.

context

1: Sense making

Our starting point was an 100+ page market research report from our colleagues, detailing healthcare trends, investment climates and infrastructure gaps across the African continent.

My first instinct was: if we can’t navigate this data, we’ll never align on a direction.

I created a visual artifact mapping:

• Key healthcare opportunities vs. technological feasibility

• Dependency graphs showing what solutions could be built on existing infrastructure

• Time horizons for foundational vs. long-term plays

This artifact made one thing clear: electronic health records (EHRs) were the linchpin. They were the gateway to solving more complex problems later.

2: Momentum

Despite this directional clarity, the team still felt paralyzed by the volume of data and ambiguity. We needed momentum. I proposed a structure: the “learning lunge.”

I split the team into squads to investigate different healthcare issues, using short sprints to explore technical readiness, social impact, investment patterns and regulations.

This lunge injected momentum and led us to a consensus: non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were an urgent, under-addressed issue. Within that, diabetes emerged as a top priority.

We also narrowed our market to Egypt, based on its infrastructure maturity, population size and openness to innovation.

3: Definition

We now needed to frame our venture challenge.

We approached the challenge with a bank slate mentality - we know nothing unless we hear it from our users. We needed to define who might be feeling the pains we are looking for -  patients, pharmacists, doctors, nurses, hospital admins, epidemiologists, government advisors - and prioritise our outreach efforts.

Facilitating a team-wide discussion and voting process we landed on:

pain

4: Show me where it hurts

We faced a major challenge: we were a remote, English-speaking team trying to access Arabic-speaking healthcare professionals in Egypt.

We started outreach through LinkedIn, telemedicine platforms and personal networks. Despite some success, it became clear we needed greater and local firepower.

The $50,000 Save

We were referred to a premium recruitment firm but their positioning during our briefing calls made me skeptical. I researched doctor and nurse salaries to evaluate what a fair incentive would be in Egypt and realized their quotes were wildly inflated. So I:

• Mapped local firms using Egyptian business directories

• Shortlisted 3 based on past healthcare work

• Negotiated directly

We signed with a new partner at 1/4th the cost. Days later, the original vendor came back, now desperate to compete. That negotiation saved the venture ~$50,000.

5: Solving the Translation Problem

With interviews underway, we encountered a new challenge. Our interview methodology relied on simultaneous note-takers, backchannel comms, rapid synthesis and iteration. That doesn’t work when you can’t understand the language. Arabic-English translation lag was significantly slowing our synthesis cycles.

Our first attempt:

• Arabic interviews

• Transcribed > Translated > Transferred to team > Entered into Airtable/Miro > Synthesised

It worked, but was too slow.

The Simultaneous Translation Hack

I devised a new method:

• A translator in a second room received the audio live

• She translated in real-time into our call

• My team could now listen, transcribe and inject questions live via backchannel.

This restored our fast synthesis cadence and let us adjust scripts and priorities in near real-time.

6: Mapping the Ecosystem

During a research trip to Cairo, I built a relationship with the CEO of our recruitment partner - a seasoned pharmacist who also ran a chain of pharmacies.

I sat with him for several hours, mapping every stakeholder and market force in Egypt’s healthcare system:

• Patient journeys

• Information bottlenecks

• Cash flows

• Informal black market workarounds

This became a foundational artifact for stakeholder prioritization and GTM planning.

7: Yggdrasil - Designing the Tree of Learning

With so many branches of inquiry and stakeholder segments, our learnings risked becoming unmanageable.

I conceived a master map, our “Tree of Learning” which:

• Visualized branching hypotheses and the interviews that tested them

• Tracked which value props were tested where

• Linked directly to Miro boards and Airtable entries

It became the single source of truth for our team and a powerful storytelling tool for our board presentation.

value

8: Testing Doodles

Once we had clear, recurring pain points, we began to prototype concepts as storyboards.

Each storyboard had 4 frames:

1. The user’s current context

2. The pain they face

3. A conceptual system that solves it

4. The improved situation

We showed users three storyboards at a time, randomized to reduce bias, and asked them:

• What’s your reaction, frame by frame?

• Who do you think this is for?

• Would you recommend this system?

• How painful is this problem in your experience?

After every five interviews, we synthesized:

• Kill (no traction)

• Modify (tweak and retest)

• Promote (advance to next testing stage)

We created dozens of value props and after priorotising them as a team, played them against each other in a ‘league’ to surface winners using qualitative feedback form our users.

solution

9: Prototyping, Risk Mapping and More Testing

Winning value props were translated into:

• User flows

• System diagrams

• Clickable landing page prototypes

Risk mapping exercises identified the next business killing usability, GTM and product assumptions and the team designed scrappy experiments to test them.

10: From Concepts to Pitch Deck

With validated concepts in hand, we built:

• Animated explainer (for patient-facing app)

• Business model (including Mechanical Turk-style MVP options)

• GTM experiment roadmap

I also designed a prototype for a patient management tool and helped structure the pitch deck for clarity, insight and persuasive storytelling. The team was ready. The day of the big pitch was upon us.

11: Killing it

Despite strong indicators, the NEOM CFO decided not to fund the venture.

Inflation in Egypt had skyrocketed a few weeks before to 10% and the financial risk was too high.

For a team that had poured 16 weeks of work and deep user insight into this project, it was a gut punch.

It fell to me to run our final retrospective. Knowing what my team was feeling I asked myself how we could turn this blow into a celebration of everything we had achieved. Where in life does death meet recognition?
I ran our final retrospective as a funeral service, priest’s collar on, with a church Zoom background, liturgic music and a sermon written for the occasion.

It was a hit. Laughter. Closure. Pride. One teammate later told me they watched the recording whenever they needed a reminder that “good work is never wasted.”

Final Reflection

Success doesn’t always look like a product launch.

Sometimes, it’s navigating chaos with calm, synthesizing hundreds of insights into something coherent, influencing a team to stay lean, curious, and bold, and turning disappointment into pride

If I had to summarize my impact? I was the force that made meaning out of the mess and helped others do the same.

Key Contributions:

• Developed team-wide alignment tools: Learning Lunge, Yggdrasil Map

• Recruited and onboarded local SMEs and interpreters

• Designed interview protocols and translation ops to maintain cadence

• Negotiated $50K vendor savings

• Led synthesis of pain insights, value props, flows and prototypes

• Led morale and meaning-making through creative workshop dynamics