Wikaya, a digital innovative health startup based in Ramallah focusing on prevention of chronic diseases, has announced the launch of an upgraded version of the mobile app with new feature to help cope up with COVID-19 pandemic in the MENA region and worldwide.

The Wikaya app was originally launched in English with its focus on improving prevention of chronic diseases by using AI technology.  The app prioritizes recommendations based on a unique predictive model of compliance which helps the platform offer customized tasks and content for a higher engagement for the user.

The new COVID-19 version offers an “Infection Risk Calculator” to estimate the risk of being infected based on users’ location, demographic and behavioral data. The new app includes more upgrades for the chronic-diseases prevention from its earlier version. The major one is a personalized feed that offers content and recommendations for each user based on their health profile, behavioral data and data analytics.

The Co-Founder and CEO of Wikaya Dr. Mahmoud Kaiyal, a doctor by profession and the founder of WebTeb (the most popular health website in Arabic) says: “We were planning to launch the Arabic version of Wikaya back in February especially after we got the  great recognition from the ministry of health in the UAE by awarding us with the MOHAP Innovation Healthcare Award in last January. But with the spread of COVID-19 which is now the major cause of death globally we decided to give full focus to it with immediate effect.

 As we believe that this is the time our company should help the concerned governments with our service, we worked with our technology partner NAdSoft, a technology company based in Amman to create a Covid -19 infection risk calculator.”  

About the technology of the product Dr. Kaiyal explains: “the calculator uses the epidemiologic data gathered so far, integrated the Calvin university model for risk assessment and had our data scientist creating the algorithms that takes into consideration the user’s personal profile and the data we know from other pandemics in the past (flu and H1N1) and other risk prediction models. For the chronic disease algorithms, we license the clinical algorithms for risk assessment from Washington University.”

He added that the product is meant only for educational and awareness purposes only and affected people should go for immediate medical consultation and advice.

Wikaya has won many accolades to its credit. The company was listed in the World Economic Forum for the top 100 startups in MENA and was recently recognized by the ministry of health of the UAE by awarding the MOHAP Innovation Healthcare Award.

The app is available both in Google Play store and App Store and is accessible in Arabic and English languages.