The Arab region faces some of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, approaching 25 per cent in places, so surviving the coming decade will require the entrepreneurs to dramatically boost the number of jobs. This reality has already become a resounding mantra in the tech community.
For a number of Arab tech entrepreneurs, survival itself has become a market. For the region’s new healthcare pioneers, creating jobs means saving lives in a more literal way and as they work to connect potential patients to doctors, facilitate blood donations or prevent heart attacks, they’re working in an increasingly lucrative market. Saudi Arabia, for example, allocated 6 billion USD in 2010 to e-health programmes that tackled the rise of ‘lifestyle diseases’ associated with the country’s staggering rates of obesity.
Cash-strapped Egypt, which spent just 106 USD per person on health in 2007, also jumped on the e-health bandwagon. Mobile Baby, a prominent example that launched in 2011, is a service that allows patients to send ultrasound images to remote physicians over mobile broadband.
The mobile health trend is only accelerating. This February, Qatar launched a dialysis machine portal for kidney patients and Jordanian telecomms operator Umniah launched a mobile health application that offers users access to content from America’s Mayo Clinic.
For the average tech entrepreneur building an app, mobile healthcare addresses a critical social issue and reaches a market in need. Growing rates of smartphone use and rising regional strife also means their time has never been more ripe. Here’s a selection of those making a difference today:
DiaLife – Algeria
This portal helps patients learn about diabetes and tracks their progress. Launched last year, the platform’s team placed as finalists in the Cloud software challenge of Microsoft’s Global Imagine Cup competition.
WebTeb and Altibbi – Jordan
These two rivals are both medical portals that provide all of the trappings of a WedMD-style site, complete with a Symptom Checker and professional advice. Altibbi has also launched an app that allows patients to access content on-the-go, while WebTeb offers content translated from Harvard Health Publications.
Tabeebi and DoctorUna – U.A.E.
Both platforms help connect patients to local doctors. DoctorUna focuses on the UAE, allowing patients to compare doctors and book an appointment on its website, while Tabeebi, which launched in February, operates as a comprehensive mobile directory for the Gulf region, listing doctors, pharmacies and clinics by location and insurance plan.
Ekshef – Egypt
This web platform allows patients to search for doctors by location and specialty but more critically, also offers the ability to book medical appointments directly online.
Donner Sang Compter – Lebanon
Perhaps it’s no surprise that a mobile application facilitating blood donation was launched in Lebanon but it’s not an unfortunate history that inspired its creation, rather, Lebanon’s high rate of car accidents. The app connects those in need of a transfusion with potential donors and also offers emergency information about various hospitals.
CardioDiagnostics – Lebanon
CardioDiagnostics produces LifeSense, a wearable vest that detects abnormalities in a patient’s heartbeat following a heart attack. The only non-smartphone app on this list, CardioDiagnostics aims to prevent deaths from the secondary heart attacks that follow an initial episode.
None of the region’s apps currently make use of geo-location in an interactive manner but that will change, especially once new address systems make finding your way in an emergency much simpler.
The next generation of apps will likely move beyond doctor directories and appointment booking services to include virtual interfaces with doctors around the world. The arrival last year of Google Glasses, a portable computing device embedded in eyewear, means that sharing medical advice, training and diagnosis is becoming much easier.
