Why we're building Heba

Hi! I’m Sam, and I cofounded Heba alongside Uzay. We wanted to tell you a little more about who we are and why we’re here building Heba.

So, who are we?

I’ve spent my career working in healthcare, both with the NHS and international organisations. Most of my roles were involved in innovation, often with a view towards new technologies that could help make healthcare more accessible.

Outside of work and whilst I was growing up, I’ve personally seen some of the challenges facing families caring for children with long term conditions. Because of these experiences, I’ve volunteered for several years with a wonderful charity in London called Keen that provides support to children with developmental conditions such as autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome and more.

What I’d seen was that although these conditions are very different, families can often face very shared challenges - namely, that they become their child’s care coordinator. Parents have to manage and share huge amounts of information, including medications, documents, appointments, symptoms and more, as well as having to navigate a fragmented system split across health, education and social care organisations. The result is an experience that can be overwhelming, isolating and complex.

I met Uzay at the end of 2022, a brilliant software engineer with a track record of building exciting new things in healthcare. We began thinking about how we could help. We wanted to build something that could provide the tools and resources that families need to coordinate their child’s care.

So, what's Heba?

At Heba, we’ve built a care platform for families caring for children with additional needs and long term conditions. Accessible as a mobile and web app, we equip parents to manage, coordinate and navigate their child’s care.

Our app provides families with:

Smart care management tools: to store, track and share care information across your team.

Personalised care guidance: to help understand and navigate the complex health, education and social care systems.

And where are we going?

Co-design and collaboration have been at the centre of building Heba from the start. We’re fortunate to have had guidance, thoughts and feedback from hundreds of families and care professionals so far. We have a brilliant advisory board guiding us as well, including parents, clinicians and technologists.

Our mission is to ensure that every family caring for a child has the support they need. To build something that can help as many families as possible, we want to learn from as many families as possible. So please do get in touch and share what we’re doing with other families and care organisations in your network. We always appreciate it.