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TKM’s first female entrepreneur Zahra al Rawahi combined her vocation and her passion to start Success Technologies
Nazia Khan

For Dr Zahra al Rawahi, the inspiration to make the leap of faith from academic to entrepreneur came at the World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship that was held in Muscat in April 2006. “I had thought about starting a business earlier, but it seemed so different from what I was already doing. Also, I had always been very connected and contented with teaching and research. But after the summit, I thought that I can do both things.�That change in ideology led to the formation of Success Technologies, a scientific and medical software start-up, just about a month later. It also made Rawahi and her associate Munira al Mahrooqi the first female entrepreneurs at The Knowledge Mine (TKM), a business incubator programme based at Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM).

Moulding medicine
For the assistant professor and Computer and Information Technology chairperson at Sultan Qaboos University’s (SQU) College of Medicine and Health Sciences, the start-up combines her passion with new challenges. Rawahi works in a specialty area called medical informatics, which is computer applications in healthcare and medicine. “I found that there was a real need for medical software to help physicians and clinicians in their daily duties. There is a lot of such software available worldwide. We tried using this readymade software but it didn’t work for us.�The problem was that the issues patients here had, were different from those that the patients in the West had. Also, the readymade software wasn’t quite tailor-made to meet the specific requirements of the students here. “So I had the idea to produce medical and scientific software oriented to the needs of customers within the GCC area.�

Rawahi believes that there is tremendous potential in the field. “While teaching students medicine, you need a simulated environment, so that a student’s mistakes, if any, happen in a simulated environment, not with patients. Normally, students just get to see the history of the patient. But within the systems we create, they could take full responsibility for the patient �from diagnosis to treatment and post-treatment care.�She gives the example of evidence-based medicine (where a patient is treated according to evidence and research data) to further clarify her point. “Most clinicians and doctors would like to get that evidence. But it’s not always easy for them to obtain it. Imagine the resource you provide when you give them a tool on their desktop, which they can just click to find evidence according to the disease that they are treating.�

Cure connections
Of course, to get to that stage of evolution involves a good deal of hard work. “We will have to buy codes, and then expand on those codes. Basically, a good deal of customisation will have to take place.�But her SQU connection means that she has access to a good deal of quality human resources to move up the progress charts. “I have graduate students in computer science and information systems, programmers as well as designers, who will work with me.�KOM being located close to SQU also serves as an additional advantage for both parties.

She continues, “Training graduates from SQU is very important to me. Here, we can provide practical training that is directed at preparing them for the needs of the job market.�In the IT world of the present and the future, Rawahi sees e-learning playing a big part in business, but only when it is understood and adapted in its true sense.

“There is a small movement within the GCC countries to use e-learning. Mainly, we’re trying to produce online versions of the documents and books that we have. But I don’t believe that’s e-learning. I want the software that we are developing to concentrate on the interaction between the user/learner and his/her environment. We are aiming to create a lot of animation, very detailed images, which really explain things well. Success Technologies aims at helping organisations to integrate e-learning and e-medicine.�

Ask her about the challenges she expects along the road to the integration, and the usual suspect cost comes up. Connecting to international research databases and providing high quality 3D graphics, among other features, don’t come cheap. “Sometimes people don’t see the benefits that they are going to get from the product. They just see the cost. And they might think that the costs are too high.�But she feels the fact that Success Technologies will have specific products, which will be marketed to specific institutions, will improve the cost-benefit scenario.

With costs going down in the IT market, Rawahi expects that the same dynamic will apply to her firm’s products and services as well. She predicts that the medical tools that are now available on a computer will soon need to be made available on mobile phone. “For us, that will be the second stage �how we provide all those tools on a cellphone. But that really depends on advancements within the telecom industry as well.�

Start-up solutions
Meanwhile, it wasn’t feminist advancement that prompted Rawahi to start an all-woman start-up, though she admits that she thinks women make better programmers than men. “They have a better ability to concentrate and also to produce interesting software.�The doctor just thinks that an all-woman start-up would encourage several potential entrepreneurs, irrespective of gender, to follow suit. “I think women tend to hesitate to start a business. They would join someone who was starting a business, but starting something on their own might seem difficult. But I suppose the fear of failure stops most people.�She says people have to step out of that fear zone. Rawahi has a message to share. “I tell my graduate students, who are looking for jobs, ‘Why don’t you make your own job?�I think that jobs come with ideas. Once people start thinking, there will be enough jobs.�

She sees tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs in the IT field at present, provided they take the initiative fast enough. “So much is being done in Oman to erase the digital divide, increase Internet penetration, and encourage people to use IT. All you need to do is think of a related concept.�

In a world where it’s just a matter of time before online is the place everything happens, Rawahi hopes entrepreneurs in Oman will catch the wave while it can still be controlled. Her own story shows that you need just one attribute to convert an idea you are enthusiastic about into a viable business �believing you can.