From being the first member of the tech team at Jacaranda Health, to now leading a team of 12, Jay has been instrumental in building systems that impact millions of mothers across Kenya.
For Jay Patel, director of technology at Jacaranda Health, his journey in the IT world is a compelling narrative of international experience, a brief detour into the family business and, ultimately, a powerful return to Kenya where he’s spearheading technological advancements with a deeply local focus as tech director for the non-profit organisation.
Jay’s initial foray into the tech world began with his studies in the United States. “After high school, I was looking to move away from Kenya for a few years. So, I applied at a few schools and started at one in Indiana. A couple of years later, some friends had moved to Ohio and said that Franklin University was good, so that’s what drew me there,” he says.
Jay completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science in Ohio. Following graduation, he did some project management work at a bank and then returned to Kenya to do similar work at a local bank. This marked his initial return “home” professionally.
A pivot in his career saw him leaving the banking sector to assist with his family’s business, which dealt in trade in hardware and locomotive parts. He says that although this was completely unrelated to his IT background, his tech acumen proved valuable.
“The business was very paper-based at the time. So, I just tried to bring it into the modern era. I automated some of the systems and moved it to being a less manual operation.” While this period allowed him to contribute his skills, it wasn’t for him. “It didn’t resonate with me and I wasn’t very good at the actual running of the business,” Jay admits, and he ultimately returned to his technology career trajectory.
Growing at Jacaranda
His true homecoming came with an opportunity at Jacaranda Health about six and a half years ago. Jacaranda partners with governments across sub-Saharan Africa to deploy affordable, scalable solutions to sustainably improve the quality of care and outcomes in public hospitals. He joined as the first member of the tech team when the business was much smaller. The growth since then has been exponential.
“I joined when we were receiving 100 questions a day from mothers in three counties in Kenya. We now receive 12,000 questions a day across 23 counties in Kenya. When I joined, we had one help desk agent. We are now 13. The organisation has grown significantly as well. We’ve enrolled up to three million moms to date,” Jay explains.
A key aspect of Jay's work at Jacaranda Health involves addressing the specific needs of the Kenyan population, particularly through language. This represents another significant “return home” in his work – a focus on local context.
“When I joined, there were no AI initiatives in place. One of my first major projects was launching our initial AI models back in 2019. Since then, we’ve continuously iterated and expanded on that foundation, leading up to the development and deployment of our own in-house large language models today,” he continues.
A current priority is perfecting their own Swahili-speaking large language model (LLM). “We built our own Swahili-speaking LLM and that’s helping to respond to questions that moms ask us in Swahili,” he explains.
He emphasises the importance of this localised approach. “Our priority is perfecting that, getting it better, making sure that we’re able to respond to these questions not only accurately, but fast, and do so cost-effectively at scale,” he explains.
He says that ChatGPT is “really good in Swahili but it’s very formal and a large percentage of our users would prefer English over that level of formal Swahili. So our models are designed to interact with users in using local vernacular and informal Swahili at a level that they understand”.
This commitment to local language highlights Jay’s dedication to ensuring the technology effectively serves the community it’s intended for.
Teams and tech
Beyond technological innovations, Jay has also navigated the complexities of team management. Having grown the tech team from a one-person operation to 13, he shares his philosophy: “I aim to hire people who are smarter than me, that is experts who can focus on the specific gaps we have. This approach allows me to step back, coordinate across team members and other departments, and serve more as a force multiplier rather than trying to do everything myself.
However, managing a tech team in East Africa comes with its unique challenges. While Jay finds that there’s a great deal of engineering talent in Kenya and that hiring good people isn’t difficult, the challenge comes in with retaining them.
“Retaining talented individuals can be challenging given the realities of the Kenyan market, where salaries naturally tend to be lower compared to those offered in the US, which frequently pays several times more than the average developer salary here. As a result, employees who quickly build their skills become highly attractive to external organisations.
To mitigate this, Jay focuses on fostering a positive team culture where individuals feel empowered and have the autonomy to make decisions that have impact. He also emphasises the attractive mission of helping mothers across the continent and ensuring the team feels they are benefiting from the work beyond just a salary.
Jay’s journey demonstrates the power of combining global experience with a deep understanding of local needs. His dedication to building a relevant and impactful technology ecosystem in Kenya, particularly through the development of Jacaranda’s Swahili LLM, showcases a remarkable return home – both professionally and linguistically.
