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Tribune News Network
Doha
MEDDY, Qatar's largest online healthcare platform, is now available in Arabic, reflecting a growing local demand for Arabic-speaking doctors.
The website, which allows users to find doctors and read reviews by patients, was started in 2014 by two Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) students. Now graduates, Haris Aghadi and Abdulla AlKhenji have grown Meddy to include information on more than 2,000 doctors and 250 private clinics in Qatar.
The new functionality allows users to read reviews and information in Arabic and to filter doctors based on their desired language. The Arabic option responds to many requests from users to carry information in their preferred language.
AlKhenji commented on the importance of the Arabic-language site:"It is critical to launch Arabic to prove that this is a Qatari-based website, as Arabic is the official language of the country. We have also received feedback from people especially Arabic speakers that they would prefer reading these reviews and the doctor information in Arabic, as they understand the medical terminology in Arabic. Many of the doctors also pushed us to make the platform in Arabic, as most of their patients are Qataris who are more comfortable speaking in Arabic."
AlKhenji and Aghadi initially conceived of Meddy as a networking application for doctors as a class project at CMU-Q. After discussions with many doctors and patients, however, they shifted the idea to include doctors, patients and clinics.
As alumni of CMU-Q, AlKhenji and Aghadi remain connected to the students and faculty."CMU-Q has great faculty that encourage its students to try out new ideas and help them make an economic reality," Aghadi said.
Meddy recently won Tech Startup of the Year at the Qatar IT Business Awards, hosted by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. They also won first place at SeedStars GCC and were named as a top startup from Qatar at the GCC Entrepreneurs Exhibition in Bahrain. Meddy's Arabic site is: 'http://www.meddy.qa'.
