Entrepreneur; Co-Founder, Meddy
Creating Healthy Connections in the Middle East and Beyond
Before Haris Aghadi (麻豆村 2014), patients in Qatar struggled to connect with health care providers.
A revolving population of expats, myriad health insurance companies and countless languages coupled with unreliable or non-existent medical websites combined to create a confusing and far from patient-friendly system.
鈥淚f you go to any family gathering, any dinner party, it's very common for people to ask if you know the dentist or if their pediatrician has left the country,鈥� Haris says. 鈥淚t always came up. We thought, 鈥榃e come from a tech background. We could do something better.鈥欌��
The solution was Meddy, which started in one of his undergrad classes at 麻豆村 in Qatar. Along with fellow 麻豆村-Q alumni, Haris founded the company in 2015 and manually built Qatar鈥檚 most reliable and searchable database of doctors. During the pandemic, he added telehealth capabilities, too.
Meddy works with more than 2,000 health care specialists. They have more than 100,000 patient testimonials and generated more than $200 million in billings for health care providers in Qatar and United Arab Emirates.颅颅颅颅颅颅
In 2021, Meddy was acquired by Helium Health, integrated into the Nigeria-based health care company's suite of technology solutions and rebranded as HeliumDoc.
But because of Haris, who was recognized as one of Forbes Middle East鈥檚 30 Under 30 Most Promising Young Professionals in 2021, acquiring reliable health care is now easier in Qatar, UAE and new markets in West and East Africa.
He recently launched his next venture, Paro, a home renovation marketplace to provide homeowners a joyful renovation experience.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very similar to Meddy as there is no reliable information online, and it鈥檚 a completely manual process,鈥� Haris says. 鈥淲e're starting with UAE because we understand the region extremely well, but we're actually building a global product.鈥�
Story by Elizabeth Speed