Abstract
When COVID-19 reached Dr. Helmi Zakariah's home country of Malaysia in January 2020, he was consulting in Brazil as CEO of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Epidemiology (AIME) on Machine Learning application for dengue outbreak forecasting. A trained physician, public health professional, and digital health entrepreneur, Dr. Zakariah found himself in high demand as the Malaysian government began to mount it's COVID-19 response. He was asked to return home to his state of Selangor to lead the Digital Epidemiology portfolio for the Selangor State Task Force for COVID-19, and upon arrival immediately began to address the many challenges COVID-19 presented. This session will bring the audience along the sobering journey of health digitisation & adoption in the heat of the pandemic and beyond–not only what works, but more importantly–what doesn't–and to reflect on the case that the cost of underinvestment and inaction for digital innovation in health is simply too high in the face of another pandemic.