Inside STAT: Health-tech entrepreneur hopes to win at the French startup game

INSIDE THE PARIS STARTUP INCUBATOR STATION F. (BERTRAND GUAY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

The story of French company Aalia Tech goes back to when its founder, Abdelaali El Badaoui, was 7 years old. He had tipped a pot of boiling water onto himself. Over the course of the next several months of recovering from the burns, he watched over and over again how his parents — who only spoke Arabic and Berber — tried in vain to communicate with the French doctors. Young El Badaoui, with his nascent Arabic and French skills, was left to translate. The problem went beyond just understanding physicians: A nurse by training, El Badaoui has also seen how those struggling to communicate receive worse care. He hopes that his medical translation app can do away with some of these problems faced by many non-native French speakers. STAT Plus subscribers can read more from Eric Boodman here.