"Leaders of the future will be dealing with challenges that are ‘wicked’ and very complex. I would say the top 3 skills are as follows: 1. Innovative agility … 2. Compassionate acumen – leading with heart and love. My belief is that in order to be a great leader you have to create peaceful and loving environments where people can fully live out their dreams. 3. Reflective quotient … a leader has to recognise their full humanity while being cognisant of the past and that which is required of them in future."

"As part of the de-colonisation project, we need to deliver health care to where people are, such that they don’t have to travel long distances to access health care."

"If I look at my own country South Africa, we inherited a health system that was really inequitable and in a sense, although we are doing excellent work in some sectors, we are grappling with the injustices of the past."

"Our core values have dramatically changed to kindness and compassion. In the past these values were not even remotely possible but because of women being part of the leadership team, these values are now a cornerstone."

"The first thing I did was to ensure structural change because it is no longer good enough as leaders to bring women into spaces where they must suffer in order to survive. It is no longer just about a seat at the table where one is constantly being minimized and invisibilised. It is about having, owning that seat at the table and thriving."

"Women have always been in the struggle, whether in the background or in the front. Without women, the movement would never have survived."

"When we joined the struggle, we never thought of ourselves as heroes. We only thought that it was our duty."

"I always seek a human connection. Without it, being a doctor would lose much of its sense of purpose."

"As we heal others we heal ourselves, life is pointless if we don’t contribute."

"God is the cornerstone of everything for me. Sometimes patients ask us to pray with them and we’re happy if we can help them feel the comfort and power they need, no matter what religion they are."

"We felt that this is where we could make a contribution."

"Conventional practice was that TB was difficult to confirm in children."

"There was a misconception that asthma is rare in African children."

"The study showed that it's common, with prevalence rates that are often higher than global rates."

"The study will hopefully provide valuable information to identify new interventions for improving child health."

"Translational research is the bridge between clinical and basic science research."

"The implementation of findings into practice and public health including policy and guidelines."

"Despite children being a third of the population, child health is relatively underfunded and underresourced."

"Child health has been worsening over the past 20 years in South Africa."

"More funding and capacity development are needed to strengthen child health programmes."

"My hope is that it helps shine a spotlight on this relatively under resourced area of research."

"Children are so seldom prioritised on the health agenda."

"There’s a lack of knowledge about the burden of childhood illnesses even though children make up 37 percent of our population."

"Much childhood death and illness is preventable."

"Improving access to affordable, effective interventions globally is vital."

"There’s so much respiratory disease and there’s so much to be done."

"I was always very interested in the potential public health impact."

"I wanted to be in an area in which you could turn things around."

"In pulmonology, there’s a lot of immediate change oxygen, antibiotics, those sorts of interventions, plus interventions on a longer timeframe."

"It’s a key issue to get these products to low and middle income countries (LMICs)."

"This is where children are dying from RSV."

"Paediatrics is about creating better futures."

"The big question in the project is, what makes for a healthy child?"

"We enrolled pregnant women, moms in these peri urban poor areas."

"Following them through pregnancy, through childbirth, and now we are following the children who are turning 11 years old."

"We wanted to look very broadly to understand why some children get ill."

"Why some children are healthy children from the same communities."

"We looked at growth, at neurodevelopment, and now as the children are getting older, we are starting to look at non-communicable diseases like cardiometabolic disease and asthma."

"The mother’s health, both physical and psychological, factors like depression and anxiety."

"We looked at the home environment, we visited the homes before the children were born, and after."

"We looked at child and maternal nutrition, at allergies."

"We even looked at things like parenting style."

"Some of their findings were predictable."

"Mothers who smoke in pregnancy have children who are smaller, children who have more lung disease, children who are less healthy."

"Now this is very important because of the new vaccines, which we really need to access for our children."

"Children suffering from diseases of poverty."

"When Mandela was freed, there was so much euphoria and so much hope for the future."

"I’ve always seen it as being absolutely essential to combine research with activism and I believe that really solid activism can be bolstered by having a research basis."

"I’ve held a belief that I will incrementally be able to try and contribute towards making the world a better place for women."