Written by Smartech Daily Team
This article has been originally published on Smartech Daily and republished at Dataconomy with permission.
In a year defined by geopolitical turbulence, unprecedented cuts to foreign aid, and widening gaps in global health systems, one medical technology company has emerged as a beacon of principled leadership and evidence-driven innovation. Xenco Medical has been awarded the 2025 World Economic Forum New Champions Award for Excellence in Governance and Leadership for Global Challenges, earning global recognition for its role in powering one of the most ambitious women’s health initiatives in modern African public health: the Afya Dada Project.
Lauded by the World Economic Forum as a model for country-led, community-powered transformation, the Afya Dada Project, meaning “Health for Sisters” in Swahili, has rapidly become a lifeline for women’s cancer prevention and care in Kenya. Xenco Medical’s leadership, funding, technology contributions, and governance partnership with Kenya’s Ministry of Health and global health actors set a new benchmark for private-sector engagement in global challenges. At a time when international health systems are strained, Xenco Medical is demonstrating what global governance looks like when innovation is paired with responsibility.
Xenco Medical’s Award for Excellence in Governance and Leadership for Global Challenges from the World Economic Forum caps what has been one of the most decorated years in the company’s history. In October 2025, Xenco was named the Medical Device/Diagnostics Company of the Year at the prestigious PM360 Trailblazer Awards in New York City for its groundbreaking biomimetic implants, regenerative biomaterials, and composite polymer surgical instruments integrated with AI-driven technologies. Earlier in 2025, Xenco was also named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company for the second time, an exceptionally rare designation underscoring its sustained leadership in redefining surgical care through mechanotransduction-inspired technologies and AI-powered rehabilitation monitoring.
The World Economic Forum’s recognition of Xenco Medical as the winner of the Award for Excellence in Governance and Leadership for Global Challenges comes from its bold philanthropic action as Kenya faced a looming health catastrophe in 2025 when over $240 million in U.S. foreign health aid was withdrawn, including $3.3 million annually dedicated to cervical cancer screening and treatment. These cuts threatened over 40,000 healthcare worker positions and disrupted crucial HPV vaccination and cervical screening programs, particularly affecting Kenya’s poorest communities. As cervical cancer remained one of the country’s deadliest diseases, claiming the lives of nine women every day, Kenya’s Ministry of Health urgently needed partners capable of not only filling the financial void but also strengthening the entire continuum of care through capacity-building and sustainable infrastructure. In response, the World Economic Forum’s Global Alliance for Women’s Health mobilized an unprecedented coalition of leading health actors, including Xenco Medical, Siemens Healthineers, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, with Xenco’s participation becoming central to the project’s scope, governance, and long-term viability.
The Afya Dada Project itself takes a systems-level approach to improving early detection, diagnosis, and treatment for breast and cervical cancers, two of the leading causes of cancer deaths among Kenyan women. The initiative’s core 14-month implementation plan spans July 2025 through October 2026 and includes broad-scale training programs, curriculum redesign, community mobilization, and major improvements in diagnostics and referral pathways. Afya Dada is built on four pillars: strengthening the healthcare workforce, improving early screening and diagnosis, increasing community awareness and demand for services, and streamlining referral pathways so that no woman is left behind. The scale of workforce training alone is substantial, with thousands of community health assistants, health promoters, nurses, radiologists, gynecologic oncologists, and other specialties. Afya Dada began with urgently needed curriculum reform; in July 2025, a team of experts from the United States traveled to Kenya to review and update national training curricula for breast and cervical cancer screening and early detection. These updated, evidence-based materials are now being disseminated through a cascade model of training workshops rolling out over a 12-month roadmap.
Xenco Medical introduced a unique blend of robust funding, operational expertise, and governance discipline to the coalition. In an article by the World Economic Forum earlier this year, Xenco Medical Founder and CEO Jason Haider was quoted describing the Afya Dada Project as using “the boundless potential of science to transform the lives of cancer patients.” Xenco Medical’s role spans several strategic domains that are essential to the project’s long-term success. Known globally for its biomimetic implants, regenerative biomaterials, and AI-enhanced surgical systems, the company brings both technical expertise and has played a major role in funding and resource mobilization. This combination of innovation, governance, and direct engagement positioned Xenco Medical as an indispensable partner in transforming Afya Dada from vision to viable national program.
The World Economic Forum’s New Champions Award recognizes private-sector organizations that embody exemplary governance, bold leadership, and responsible innovation in solving global challenges, and Xenco Medical was selected for several defining reasons. The first is its demonstrated leadership during a global health crisis; when Kenya’s cancer care capacity risked collapse, Xenco stepped into a governance role, mobilizing resources, expertise, and long-term commitment rather than offering short-term aid. The second reason is its clear commitment to women’s health equity. Afya Dada is intentionally designed as a scalable, sustainable national model beginning in Machakos and Uasin Gishu, with planned expansion to high-burden counties across Kenya and potential replication across sub-Saharan Africa. WEF describes the program as “a resilient, people-first system for cancer care that can stand the test of time and serve as a blueprint for other countries.” Third, Xenco has demonstrated deep collaboration with governments and global institutions, joining a governance coalition that includes Kenya’s Ministry of Health, the WEF Global Alliance for Women’s Health, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Siemens Healthineers, and AstraZeneca. The effectiveness of such a coalition required a disciplined and trustworthy private-sector partner, Xenco Medical fulfilled that role. Finally, Xenco helped deliver evidence-based, measurable workforce training outcomes, from the training of thousands of community health assistants, community health promoters, and nurses, to multiple cadres of radiologists, oncologists, and pathologists in specialized cancer care. These outputs map directly to Kenya’s national goal of reducing breast and cervical cancer mortality by one-third by 2028, a priority WEF has also identified in its global analyses.
As global health systems brace for ongoing economic and geopolitical shocks, Afya Dada stands as a working model for how private-sector innovation and public-sector leadership can combine to build resilient care infrastructures. Through its leadership in Afya Dada, Xenco Medical has moved beyond the traditional role of a medical device innovator. It has evolved into a new kind of global actor, one capable of aligning scientific innovation with governance, equity, and shared value.
Xenco Medical’s recognition at the 2025 World Economic Forum marks more than a corporate milestone; it signals a shift in how global challenges are addressed. The Afya Dada Project demonstrates that sustainable global health transformation requires private-sector innovation scaled for public good, government-led planning and local ownership, long-term funding and training pipelines, and coalitions that transcend traditional donor models. As Kenya continues its march toward reducing preventable cancer deaths, the world will be watching the Afya Dada Project and Xenco Medical’s continued leadership as a blueprint for future coalitions aiming to solve humanity’s most urgent challenges.
