WoW Woman in FemTech - Prof Angie Doshani, founder of Health4her CIC and JanamApp
Prof Angie Doshani is a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, digital health innovator, and founder of JanamApp.
Based in Leicester, UK, she has over 30 years of experience working across maternity care, education, research, and health inequalities. Angie is an Honorary Professor at De Montfort University and has held senior educational leadership roles both in undergraduate and postgraduate education. She is the creator of JanamApp, a culturally sensitive digital maternity platform co-produced with South Asian communities to improve access to pregnancy and perinatal mental health information. Angie has secured over £600,000 in SBRI funding, led national pilots across NHS trusts, and contributed evidence to MBRRACE and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Birth Trauma. She is a graduate of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneurship Programme and the HIEM Digital Accelerator and currently serves as an NHS England Core20PLUS Ambassador and an NIA fellow. Her passions include reducing health inequalities, empowering women and birthing people through education and technology, coaching the future healthcare workforce, and advancing inclusive digital health innovation.
JanamApp is a culturally sensitive digital maternity education platform designed to support women and birthing people throughout pregnancy and the perinatal period. Co-produced with South Asian communities and healthcare professionals, JanamApp provides trusted, multilingual, audio-visual information that is culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate, improving health literacy, informed decision-making, and access to care. The platform addresses health inequalities by supporting those who face language, cultural, and digital barriers, and aligns with NHS priorities, including Core20PLUS and Net Zero ambitions. JanamApp is currently deployed across multiple NHS trusts in England and is scaling nationally following successful SBRI funding and pilots.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
I’m Prof Angie Doshani, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and the founder of Health4her CIC and JanamApp, a culturally sensitive digital maternity platform supporting South Asian birthing people. My work is driven by a clear aim: to improve maternity outcomes and reduce long-standing health inequalities by ensuring care is accessible, inclusive, and shaped by the voices of those most affected.
Alongside my clinical role, I work at the intersection of digital innovation, education, and community partnership, collaborating with national charities and organisations, including the Department of Health and Social Care. I’m particularly passionate about translating lived experience and frontline clinical insight into practical, scalable digital solutions that empower women and birthing people, support the maternity workforce, and drive meaningful system-level change.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
I got into digital health innovation through my clinical work, but it was also shaped by my own experience of motherhood. Over many years in maternity care, I repeatedly saw how the same inequalities played out, particularly for South Asian women and birthing people, where language barriers, cultural disconnects, and lack of accessible information directly affected outcomes and experiences.
Becoming a mother made those issues feel even more real. It deepened my understanding of how vulnerable pregnancy and the postnatal period can be, and how that vulnerability is magnified for those navigating the system with additional barriers such as limited English or disability. That combination of professional insight and personal experience was a turning point for me.
I didn’t come into this from a tech background. I came in with a clear problem to solve and a strong sense of responsibility to do something about it. Moving into digital health has been challenging — learning a new industry, securing funding, and balancing clinical leadership with innovation — but those challenges have reinforced my belief that well-designed, inclusive digital tools can make a real difference to maternity care.
How long did it take to be where you are now? Biggest obstacle? Challenges of working in this industry?
JanamApp has been nearly three years in the making, from early co-design workshops in 2022 to securing national SBRI funding, piloting in one of the UK’s largest maternity services, and now moving towards wider national deployment
The biggest obstacle has been funding and procurement. There is clear enthusiasm and a genuine need for the app, but financial constraints, uncertainty about where budgets sit, and the complexity of NHS procurement processes often slow progress. Even when organisations are keen, navigating multiple layers of approval can be challenging.
Another ongoing challenge is the need to repeatedly prove impact. Despite clear benefits for patients demonstrated in one trust, the same evidence is often required again and again across different organisations. Adoption remains the key issue in digital health — technology only works when organisations are able to implement it and when users trust it, understand it, and see its relevance. That’s why co-production has been central to everything I do.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
Some of the achievements I’m most proud of reflect both the impact of the work and the journey behind it. Securing £600,000 in SBRI funding to design, build, and scale JanamApp was a major milestone, validating the need for culturally inclusive digital maternity support. Seeing the app successfully piloted at University Hospitals of Leicester, with strong uptake among South Asian birthing people, has been particularly meaningful, especially knowing how it has supported women and birthing people through birth trauma by providing accessible, trusted guidance and reassurance.
I’m also proud that this impact has been recognised beyond the clinical setting. I was invited to give expert evidence at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Birth Trauma in Parliament, presenting JanamApp as a practical solution to support women and birthing people navigating traumatic birth experiences. Alongside this, JanamApp has been procured by Derby, Burton, and Manchester hospitals NHS trusts, with Leeds and Sheffield soon to join the JanamApp family, demonstrating its growing reach. Being selected for the NHS Clinical Entrepreneurship Programme, the HIEM Digital Accelerator, and the highly competitive NIA Fellowship Programme has been formative, supporting both my development and the growth of the app. Receiving the Digital Leader Award at the APNA Awards was a special moment, recognising this work within the communities it was designed to serve. Finally, being appointed as an NHS England Core20PLUS Ambassador allows me to continue addressing health inequalities on a national scale.
What projects are you currently working on?
My current work focuses on improving maternity care and reducing health inequalities, with a strong emphasis on perinatal mental health. Through JanamApp, we are expanding and enhancing our multilingual perinatal mental health content, building on what we already have to provide more comprehensive, culturally sensitive support for South Asian women and birthing people. This includes creating accessible information, guidance, and resources that help identify and manage mental health concerns during pregnancy and after birth.
We are also working on improving research participation by simplifying study information and making it more inclusive, helping ethnically diverse women and birthing people engage safely and confidently in maternity research.
Separately, we are creating clear pathways for raising concerns within maternity care, ensuring that women and birthing people know how to speak up and access support when needed.
Through Health4her CIC, we continue to collaborate with national charities and local community groups to support ethnically diverse birthing people, including work with Kurdish communities in Leicester. We are also strengthening cross-sector collaborations with NHS Resolution, DOHSC and public health agencies to ensure perinatal health support is prioritised and embedded throughout maternity services.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you? Why?
Absolutely. Women—especially ethnically diverse women—are still underrepresented in digital leadership roles, and that’s something I feel very personally about. The #WomenInTech movement matters because lived experience shapes better technology, diversity drives innovation, and visible role models help future women believe they can lead.
I came into tech indirectly, through clinical work and a problem I wanted to solve, rather than through a traditional tech route. Movements like #WomenInTech are so important because they create visibility, build community, and open pathways that didn’t exist before—showing women that it’s possible to make a real impact, even if your route isn’t conventional.
What are the key trends in your industry you expect to see over the next five years?
I expect to see:
1. Cultural and linguistic personalisation of digital health
Solutions that recognise the specific needs of different communities—moving away from “one-size-fits-all.”
2. Rapid growth of digital maternity pathways
Reducing unnecessary appointments, improving access, and supporting the NHS’s Net Zero ambitions.
3. Co-production becoming a standard
Not just gathering feedback, but involving users as equal partners in design.
4. Expansion of AI-supported health education
Including multilingual conversational guidance, personalised updates, and risk-stratified information delivery.
5. Greater focus on health inequalities
Digital tools will increasingly be judged on their ability to close gaps—not widen them.
What is the most important advice for someone starting a career in this industry?
The most important advice I’d give is to start with the problem, not the technology. I didn’t come into digital health as a tech expert—I came in with a problem I knew needed solving. If you build something for people, it will rarely succeed. If you build it with people, it almost always will.
Don’t wait until you feel “ready”—I certainly didn’t. You learn by doing, by trial and error, and by listening to those you’re trying to support. Build partnerships early, let your values guide your decisions, and be prepared for resilience, persistence, and moments of discomfort—they are all part of the journey, but they shape the impact you can make.
Who are the three inspirational women you admire in your industry?
Here are three inspirational women in health and technology whom I admire:
1. Dr Navina Evans – As a senior NHS leader and advocate for equality and workforce transformation, Navina has championed diversity and systemic change at the highest levels of healthcare leadership.
2. Dr Nadine Hachach-Haram – Founder of Proximie, a global digital surgery platform. Her work in digital health shows how technology can transform clinical care and extend expertise across borders.
3. Dr Vivienne Ming – A neuroscientist and entrepreneur whose work bridges AI, healthcare, and human potential. She has applied cutting-edge technology to address real health and behavioural challenges, with a strong focus on equity and inclusion.
Find out more about JanamApp on their website.
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