Tariq Al-Mansouri, Looms' founder and CEO, didn't set out to build a health technology company. He's a software engineer by training, with a decade in financial services technology. The decision to start Looms came from a personal experience that he's told many times but that still, in his words, 'makes me angry every time I think about it'.
The incident
In 2022, Tariq's father was admitted to hospital in Dubai following a suspected cardiac event. The hospital needed his complete medication list and his cardiac history. His father's cardiologist — at a different hospital — had those records. But the records were on paper, the cardiologist was unavailable and the hospital had no way to access them.
'We spent three hours on the phone, between my mother calling the clinic and me trying to get someone to fax a document to a hospital. Three hours. In 2022. In Dubai.' The father recovered. But the experience was a catalyst.
From frustration to product
Tariq spent six months talking to patients, doctors and clinic administrators before writing a line of code. His working hypothesis was that the problem wasn't technology — it was ownership. Records were generated by institutions and locked in institutional systems, rather than being held by the patient and shared as the patient needed.
The solution he arrived at was patient-held, verified, portable records — with the institution as issuer and the patient as custodian.
Where Looms is going
'I want the day to come when a patient arrives at any hospital anywhere in the GCC and the relevant part of their health history is there instantly — because they shared it, because they chose to. Not because of a government mandate or a hospital IT project, but because patients have their data and know how to use it.' That's the Looms mission. It's still a long way away. But the direction is clear.