David Aylward was born in Beijing, China, February 15, 1950, the son of a US Foreign Service Officer. He grew up in the Far East. Since 1965 he has primarily been a resident of Washington, DC.
Currently, he is the Senior Advisor, Global Health and Technology, at Ashoka, the 30 year old international network of social entrepreneurs. He is focused on transforming health for disadvantaged people using modern information and communications technologies, especially wireless, deployed by new combinations of citizen, public and private organizations. www.ashoka.org; www.nutrientsforall.org; www.healthforall.org. Until March 2011, he was the first Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance. The Alliance is dedicated to enabling quality health, and the delivery of quality healthcare, to the farthest reaches of wireless networks. It is building a public-private coalition of organizations to address the health needs of emerging economies across the world. These organizations are developing new ways for mHealth to increase the availability, accessibility, and effectiveness of health information and services. Created by the United Nations Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Vodafone Group Foundation, and joined by PEPFAR and the GSM Association as founding partners, the Alliance’s mission is to be a catalyst and accelerant. www.mHealthAlliance.org.
David has forty years of experience in public policy, information technology, and communications in both the public and private sectors. After practicing contracts law with Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, he began his communications career as Legislative Director to U.S. Representative Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colorado). He directed the staff of the House Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee during the advent of competition in telecommunications, the breakup of AT&T, the emergence of the cable television industry, and the introduction of electronic and competitive securities trading. He later established National Strategies, a successful business and public policy consulting firm that he led for 25 years. Prior to joining the mHealth Alliance, he was a Director and Chief Strategist of the non-profit COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance, which he founded in 1998. At COMCARE, David helped develop a new vision and interoperable architecture for domestic emergency response of all kinds, including medical, based on modern information technology, broadband, and wireless.
He has managed and been an owner of radio and satellite companies, and represented a wide range of information, communications, health, finance and other clients. He has focused on health, information technology, public media, and assisting innovative start-up companies, in addition to his emergency response leadership.
David received a BA from Dartmouth College in 1971 and a JD with High Honors from The George Washington University Law School in 1976. He is married. He has three children and nine grandchildren.[1]