(Photo by iStock/FatCamera)
In countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), women face regressive stereotypes informed by religious and political mores that have historically made it difficult for them to openly discuss their sexual and reproductive health needs. As a result, they encounter significant hurdles in accessing sexual-health education and information about their sexuality, bodily autonomy, and menstrual health.
With the launch of Daleela in 2023, CEO Yousef ElSammaa and cofounders Nour Emam and Ahmad Abou Hashem aim to provide Arabic women with secure, anonymous access to information about sexual and reproductive health.
The concept for Daleela originated in Emam’s experience with postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which went undiagnosed for eight months in 2019. The following year, she, ElSammaa, and Hashem cofounded the Motherbeing clinic, a hybrid clinic in Cairo, Egypt, offering in-clinic medical services and online consultations on TikTok and Instagram. Emam also hosts Motherbeing webinars on women’s fertility, pregnancy, and birth.
Through active social media engagement, Motherbeing quickly amassed more than three million users, who often reached out with questions about health concerns. Recognizing this ongoing demand for reliable information, the team decided to create their own AI model to address this need—the innovation became Daleela AI.
“We decided to close the clinic and concentrate all our services on the Daleela AI app because it’s more scalable and we wouldn’t be able to scale the clinic as fast,” ElSammaa explains. “Our goal was to create a model that could effectively reach and serve millions of women instantly.”
The team dedicated nearly nine months to developing the AI model, training it using thousands of data points sourced from their expert team of medical doctors and sex educators, as well as their users. The app utilizes end-to-end encryption for communication and strict user-consent policies to safeguard user data. It also is trained in Arabic-language medical resources, with human oversight, to ensure factual accuracy of medical information.
Additionally, the app features educational programs on sexual health, menstrual health, birth control, nutrition, family planning, and other topics. These programs are delivered in both English and Arabic by medically trained in-house experts. The AI assistant is designed to interact with users, answering questions about women’s health in both English and local Arabic dialects.
A medical consultations feature was launched in November. Users, who must be over the age of 18, can receive medical diagnoses and treatments from licensed doctors within 24 hours for a variety of conditions, including infections, birth control needs, fertility issues, and dermatological concerns. While the app itself is free, the consultations feature costs $5 per transaction, or users can pay an annual subscription of $30.
Daleela has facilitated 1,800 consultations to date, and more than 76,000 users have subscribed to the app. Approximately 65 percent of these users are based in Egypt, while the remaining 35 percent come from 14 other countries across the MENA region, according to ElSammaa.
This summer, the cofounders plan to introduce a period and fertility tracker feature free of charge to users. This addition will assist users in monitoring their menstrual cycles and overall reproductive health.
Later this year, they plan to expand fully into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
Read more stories by Valentine Benjamin.