The most consequential technology work often happens in sectors where change is slow, oversight is heavy, and the cost of getting things wrong is high. Justin Fulcher has spent his career in exactly those environments, first building healthcare technology across Asian markets and then advising the U.S. Department of Defense on how to acquire and deploy modern software.
What RingMD Taught About Operating in Constrained Markets
Fulcher co-founded RingMD in 2013 with a focus on one of the most persistent gaps in Asian healthcare: millions of people had smartphones but lacked reliable access to medical professionals. The telemedicine platform grew to operate across multiple countries, engineering around unreliable connectivity and adapting to the distinct regulatory requirements of each market it entered. The underlying problem was both practical and urgent. Fulcher made the case clearly in a 2020 interview: “Healthcare is one of those things that affects everybody. Without the basic, fundamental healthcare access, it handicaps many parts of the world.” Forbes Asia named him among its 30 Under 30 honorees in Healthcare and Science in 2017. He has since stepped back from operations at RingMD, serving as a board member and minority shareholder.
Defense Procurement Reform in Practice
Justin Fulcher’s move to the public sector formalized what had been an implicit interest in institutional reform. Appointed Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense in early 2025, he concentrated on reducing the friction in defense acquisition particularly for software and technology tools that the department needed to deploy faster than its existing processes allowed. His contributions supported changes that reduced software procurement timelines from years to months. He was also involved in international engagements in the Indo-Pacific region alongside senior defense officials. Fulcher’s academic trajectory supports this work: he earned a graduate degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute in 2023 and is now a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. His current interests focus on defense technology innovation and the resilience of supply chains for rare-earth elements and other critical materials. See related link for additional information.
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