Economics, biology, and anti-malarial apps: An interview with Arnon Houri-Yafin

We’re excited to share an interview with Arnon Houri-Yafin, the latest entry in our Career Journeys series. Arnon is the founder and CEO of Zzapp Malaria, an AI-assisted mobile app that identifies malaria hotspots that can be prioritized for treatment with larvicide–an approach Zzapp claims can be as much as 2x more cost-effective than antimalarial bednets.

Before Zzapp, Arnon’s career took him through several very different roles. After studying economics at university, he briefly worked at Israel’s securities regulator, then taught statistics during an MA, before leaving to join a biotech startup. When the startup pivoted away from malaria diagnostics, Arnon wanted to continue combatting malaria, which led to him founding Zzapp. 

In the interview, we discuss how Arnon came to be interested in malaria, how his background in economics shaped his career trajectory, how he secured funding for Zzapp, and several other topics. Below, you can find a brief extract from the full interview:

On navigating the funding landscape with Zzapp:

‘Early in the process, we decided that this would be a for-profit company. Now, eventually, all of the money that we received was NGO-like money. We received money from the Gates Foundation, and we got the XPRIZE Artificial Intelligence for Good, for $3 million. But I spent a lot of time really trying to build the optimal PowerPoint presentation for private investors, and speaking to investors, and it just never worked. The reason for that was that it’s very tough to sell someone that you’re a malaria-only company. Our thinking was that people would invest because of the impact. But then you just confuse people. Because people think, “okay, if it’s for impact, why aren’t you an NGO”?

So that was a bad experience. And vice versa, I really learned to like the process of getting philanthropic money. It’s more similar to the money that professors in the university get. You just explain cost-effectiveness reasoning, a thesis, risks to the project, and then a smart institution like the Gates Foundation might like it. This is something that I actually find I enjoy, and it worked for me. But also, I think that it actually improves what you do similar to how teaching is good for understanding. In the same way, writing a grant, when you believe that the person that reads the grant is a professional, makes you think more proficiently.’