News
Using technology to give people access to mental health professionals
Although Egypt’s mental health policy was formulated back in 1978, the Egyptian government only spends 2% of its already meager national healthcare budget (3.4% of the national budget) on mental health and 59% of this budget is spent on public mental health hospitals.
In a 2015 report from the General Secretariat of Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, it was revealed that more than 12% of adults in Egypt had mental disorders and some sources put that number at 17%, that’s anywhere from 5 to 7 million people. If you compare that with the actual capacity of the mental health sector as reported by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights being 15 hospitals, 62 clinics and 600 mental health practitioners, it becomes easy to realize the that system is not equipped to handle a problem of this magnitude. Combine that with the social stigma attached to mental disorders, the concerns about security and privacy and it’s easy to see why and how many patients find it difficult to find and receive the treatment they need.
There is certainly a market need and a real problem and that’s why Endure Capital, A15, and Angel Investor and former Senior Vice President at WebMD Karim Hussien are joining forces and investing 1.5M EGP in Shezlong. “We love ideas and startups that are the product of a real need and that have come to exist in order to address and solve a real problem in the community. That is what first attracted our attention to Shezlong and is ultimately a key reason why we invested in the team,” said A15 CEO, Fadi Antaki.
Shezlong is the first telemedicine platform in the MENA region to focus on mental health. It provides convenient and private counselling services through connecting individuals with licensed therapists using online audio and video technology. Today Shezlong is growing at 20% month over month with therapists from 6 countries serving clients in over 65 countries. In the future, Shezlong’s growth is planned to come through geographical expansion to the rest of the MENA region and through specifically targeting several customer segments like mothers and couples with marital disorders. Additionally, they plan on working with corporate companies to provide “Employee counseling services”. In the pipeline is also a chatting service that will enable anyone to chat with therapists through Whatsapp texting and voice notes – through an affordable monthly subscription.
“The idea of Shezlong came after I had a serious accident back in 2013. I suffered from severe depression and it was difficult for me to find a trustworthy and reliable psychiatrist. I was also handicapped because of the injuries, so I thought, why wouldn’t we have a mental health platform serving people wherever they are? That helps me find who the right doctor is and then helps me connect with them?” Said Ahmed Abu Elhaz, Shezlong’s CEO. “In 2014, we applied with our business plan to the TIEC government incubation program. We were provided with an office and a fund of 160K EGP to spend over a period of 1 year. By 2015, we had launched our platform, and worked on growing our medical team. Today and with the help of A15, Endure and Karim, we will be looking to expand our business further and work on reaching the people we know need mental health support” Added Abu Elhaz.
News
Amr Diab Gets Hacked on Twitter
Amr Diab’s Facebook page has announced that his twitter account has been hijacked by anonymous and now tweeting political.
Update: Amr Diab’s Facebook Page announced that “Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been restored successfully and you can follow Amr’s tweets normally now”
Amr Diab got hacked on Twitter
On Thursday 9th of Jan, Amr Diab’s Facebook page announced that Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been hacked by anonymous and now tweeting politics!
Amr Abdul-Basset Abdul-Azeez Diab (born 11 October 1961) is an Egyptian singer and composer of pop music. He was awarded the World Music Award for Best Selling Middle East Artist, three times: 1998 for the album “Nour El Ain”, 2002 for the album “Aktrr Wahid Byhbak 2001” and 2007 for the album “El Lillady”. Amr Diab also won The African Music Awards 2009, Big Apple Music Awards; Life Achievements Awards: Best Singer of The Year in 2009, and Best Male Act in African Music Awards 2010.
He is known as the Father of Mediterranean Music He has created his own style which is often termed “Mediterranean Music” or “Mediterranean Sound”, a blend of Western and Egyptian rhythms.
In The Mediterranean in Music, David Cooper and Kevin Dawe referred to his music as “the new breed of Mediterranean music”.According to author Michael Frishkopf, Amr Diab has produced a new concept of Mediterranean music, especially in his international hit, “Nour El Ain”.
In his analysis of The Very Best of Amr Diab album, Victor W. Valdivia of All music said: “His music melded traditional Arabic sounds and textures with Western rhythms and instruments. The mesh was dubbed Mediterranean music, and The Very Best of Amr Diab displays Diab’s superb skill in creating it.”
In 1997, he won three awards at the Annual Arabic Festival: one for Best Video, for Best Song, and for Best Artist of the Year. Diab received a Triple Platinum Award for the sales of Nour El Ain and a World Music Award in Monaco.
After the success of the previously shared overall analysis of Sherine’s new album “Ana Keter” and her social media presence, we decided to fulfill your requests with more details and additional insights.
The report is from Jan 15 through Jan 31, 2014; however, starting Feb, we noticed that Sherine’s team has enhanced and developed how they engage with fans on Facebook.
Still, there’s more to do; please review the slides below to know what exactly they are missing with recommendations.
Check out the report:
Key take-outs in 15 days after the launch:
- Album gained 11 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube
- YouTube Channel subscribers boosted by 90K subscribers in 15 days out of 127K total subscribers overtime
- Buzz reached 15K tweets/RTs since the launch on Twitter
- How do people talk about the album/Sherine on Twitter?
- People are sharing songs from YouTube & SoundCloud
- +90% positive sentiment on Twitter
- Sherine’s Twitter account is excellent at spreading the news about the album’s success.
- People are tweeting the song’s lyrics.
- Sarcastic tweets about Sherine & few songs (regular) - Almost zero negativity about the album
- Album teasers on Facebook created credibility for Sherine’s page, reflected in the page results after the album’s launch in the next 15 days with 92K Interactions & 312K New Likes.
- The album received tremendous engagement on the launching date of Jan 15. However, no posts for four days after the launch negatively affected the interactions.
Recommendations:
Sherine Abdel Wahab’s Facebook page would have received double or maybe triple new likes and interactions if the improved posts’ quality; please find below the points taken:
- Long updates with no extra value-added will lead to losing your fans’ interest
- The text-only format isn’t preferred, as it is well-known that they generate less reach than other content (Facebook announcement)
- A call to action is essential to generate leads & increase engagement
- Each post has to have its visual, audio, or video so you can attract/engage your audiences
- Understand the situation and act upon it, always be relevant to the time and avoid posting irrelevant content at the wrong time.
- Revise the tone of voice in future activities.
To recap - Overall performance is average to good - Enhance your content formatting - Improve the tone of voice on all networks - Be creative to engage your fans better - Be Consistent - Start your SoundCloud account.
News
Putin, Obama war on social media starts with unfriend on Facebook
New stage of the cold war, is it?
The Social media war between Putin and Obama started with UnFriend, this is the action taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Facebook diplomacy with American president Barack Obama.
The unfriending comes after an official White House update about the possibility of a US-Syrian war. President Putin revealed that Obama’s updates about the Congressional debate on a possible war with Syria have annoyed him.
After unfriending, President Putin update status on profile “Something I should have done a long time ago”
Also, He said to Russia’s Pravda News Service “President Assad and I, we are the Facebook friends. We like the same pages, we share pictures of cute women and all that. Obama needs to lighten up on there, it’s not for serious stuff,”
President Obama’s latest posts about the possibility of the war in Syria have been reported by someone and he received a warning from Facebook that he will be prevented from posting on his profile for 24 hours.
He has also commented “Really, Putin needs to grow up. If he didn’t like that [post], he could have just hid it from his news feed instead of creating all this Facebook drama,”
JOE BIDEN “Vice President of the United States” announced to reports that President Obama has signed into his Twitter account to unfollow Putin.
The turmoil generated between Putin and Obama over their dispute on the Syrian crisis. Expanded to reach the social networks
Putin and Obama on social Networks
The question now is, are we witnessing a new stage of the cold war between the two countries, will they continue the war online instead of the military tactics and old spy war?
It’s obvious that social media is really changing the game in everything, and now it’s taking over on a very high level.
Keep an eye on Digital Boom and we will keep you posted with more news and updates on the cold war and even more…
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