Rana Hamadeh

Jordanian tech innovator creating healthcare access in underserved regions

Rana Hamadeh is a Jordanian biomedical engineer whose telemedicine innovations have expanded healthcare access across the Middle East and Africa. Born in Amman in 1982, she launched MedicLink in 2010, a mobile health platform connecting rural patients with specialists via satellite networks. Her system uses AI-driven diagnostic tools and supports 14 regional languages.

Hamadeh's 2015 'Health Cart' initiative deployed solar-powered mobile clinics to Syrian refugee camps, providing prenatal care and chronic disease management. This project won the World Economic Forum's Tech Pioneer Award in 2016. Her 2018 partnership with the WHO developed a blockchain-based drug traceability system to combat counterfeit medications in Africa.

In 2020, she introduced the 'Eyes of Hope' project, using AI retinal scans to detect diabetes-related blindness in remote areas. This initiative has screened over 200,000 patients in Jordan and Kenya. Rana's TEDx talk "Bridging the Healthcare Divide with Tech" inspired global health NGOs to adopt her models. She currently advises the African Union's Digital Health Task Force and was listed in Forbes Middle East's 2021 Healthcare Innovators list.