In this special episode of Below the Fold, in collaboration with Date With Tech Podcast, Launch.fndry, and Trescon, we sit down with Eng. Hessa Lootah, the visionary behind Dr. Layla—an AI-powered teaching assistant blending traditional medicine and modern science. Hessa shares how her passion for AI, her family’s legacy in education, and a bold vision for the future came together to create a culturally rooted, scientifically sound AI persona that’s changing how students learn.
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🔗 Listen now to discover how one Emirati engineer is redefining the future of AI in education—starting with a greenhouse and a shy digital doctor.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:19 Vision Behind Dr. Layla
00:44 Dr. Layla's Role and Function
01:29 The Persona of Dr. Layla
02:16 Balancing Cultural Heritage and Scientific Accuracy
03:04 Reactions and Acceptance
05:28 AI in Education: Challenges and Integration
07:19 Personal Ambitions and Legacy
08:48 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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[00:00:00]Eng. Hessa Lootah, welcome to podcast with tech, uh, episode today. And thank you for, um, accepting the invitation. I want to ask you about the vision for, behind Dr. Layla. Um, uh, I mean, what inspired the creation of, uh, uh, an AI expert in the, uh, in the natural medicine? So our idea behind Dr. Leila, we are a medical university.
Everybody is like medical ai. Where is the correlation between that? Are you like diagnosing people? No. What we're trying to do with Dr. Leila is we are teaching our students. We are informing them. We're helping them with their research. This is a teaching tool because we have noticed we do not want to graduate our students with just textbook knowledge.
This is not what we want. We want them to have as many opportunities as [00:01:00] possible when they graduate from an institution and one of them being natural medicine. This knowledge has been existing for thousands of years, might as well utilize it. And with AI we are able to teach them in a more efficient way, more controlled way.
And rather than develop and depend on a process that has too much information, go through research articles and stuff, we have created our database with Dr. Leila and she's able to efficiently help our students with learning. Right. Um, I wanna ask you a very, uh, for me, it's a nice question. Dr. Layla is always in the shadow.
Yes. And you worked hard on, let me say, uh, uh, developing, uh, a lot of things for her and working on her image. Tell us a little bit about this and, and why she, she likes to be, she don't like to, she's always in the shadow. So she is in the shadow because it's also, she's a shy lady. She has been sitting in our greenhouse.
Our greenhouse is the only greenhouse in the world that is specific to medicinal plants. So this greenhouse, she never really reads the greenhouse. She is the manager there, but she is a little [00:02:00] shy. So we came up to her like Eva, when you talk to her in her interface right now with her booth, she is a conversational AI model.
We've noticed that the aspect and the best part of communication comes with the human interaction. My next question is about the AI persona. How can you ensure that there is a balance between, let's say, um, uh, cultural heritage and the, let's say, scientific accuracy? So this is where we came into. So in biomedical university we have three colleges, medicine, pharmacy, and nursing.
And with pharmacy, because you know, natural medicine is more dependent on pharmacy, we're doing systematic reviews and, uh, ensuring that. All the information that is inputted inside Layla and outputted as words and speech and the information that she's passing on is scientifically accurate. Okay? So of course we're not seeking out the aspects of cultural heritage, especially now in so many countries.
It's part of their culture, it's part of their tradition. We're not removing that aspect, but we are blending together modern [00:03:00] medicine and natural medicine with one another so it coexists properly. What was the, the most surprising reactions from students, uh, educators when they were talking to Dr. Layla?
They actually, specifically our faculty, they were so impressed because what we programmed her, again, she's not to replace medical staff, medical faculty, but we are here to teach the students. So like if you'll ever try her, she'll always give you the advice, but then she'll tell you, always consult with the healthcare provider.
We are not replacing their job, we're enhancing their jobs. This is the most important. So in the beginning there was some resistance, like why is she verified? Where's her medical degree? No, she doesn't have a medical degree. So we're not playing around specifically. Now we're talking about healthcare.
We're talking about medicine. Like if there's a, let's say an engineering project. Oh, if the table fails, okay, the table fails. But if we fail, we put human life at risk. We can't play around with the such matters. So in this case, like [00:04:00] again, she is existing as a teaching tool. And AI help her, like we collect to say that we hired Dr.
Layla. This is the idea. We hired her to help us, but she's not stealing us. Yes. She's not stealing our job. Um, and what kind of training or data? So training and data as well is given, um, uh, or have really led to making these AI assistance, uh, uh, uh, unique or, um, you know, accurate and, and, uh, as you said, one of the, the best, uh, AI efforts.
That's an amazing question. This is something that we worked on really much. So we have established her database through medical research, medical research, and medical journals. Of course, as I've mentioned, we're not taking out the element of modern medicine from this. This is still. Modern medicine. And then from that, some of the knowledge that we have from alternative medicine, it's not in fact documented.
Some of them is unfortunately stuck with the older generation with paper and pen. It's not really documented, preserved and such. So we went to [00:05:00] local experts, we went to international experts in regards to Chinese medicine, rdic medicine, even local medicine here in the UAE, which people don't really know about that.
We actually have a medicine and traditions and stuff. And from that, again, our pharmacy college. Reviews all the information ensures that everything is scientifically accurate and is aligned with our customs, our ideologies, and modern medicine, and we bring it to latest knowledge. Amazing. Amazing. Tell me, uh, tell me, uh, where are we going in this AI education and what are the boundaries and where are, where are going to be?
So the boundaries with AI and education as a start, of course, I'm not speaking for every educational institute, but we had restrictions. We had resistance. They didn't want ai. Students are gonna use AI to cheat, or you know, oh yeah. Gonna be that part. Additionally, this is how the impression is. Exactly. So they're not really accepting of it.
We took it from another approach. We told the students, you are [00:06:00] more than welcome to use it. We adjusted our curriculums to use it. We want to ensure that this is a tool, it's gonna stay. It's like the internet. At the beginning, everyone would be like, no, we don't want internet. Oh, it's ruining our brain.
It's making us sorry for the word, like not smart enough. Hmm. Now everybody uses the internet. Artificial intelligence is gonna be almost like that. Everybody is resistant at the start, but then it's going to be integrated in our everyday lives, so might as well help our students understand how to use it more efficiently.
You face a lot of such challenges and resistance. I. Uh, in terms of what do you exactly mean? Like as personally? Uh, no, the students when they, they are resisting, right? We did. From students, like you said, they ask you, uh, is it legitimate? Who's this doctor? We did, are we really need to do we need to use the, we had, people are like, how is this better than Google?
We'll tell you how it's better than Google. Google. If you'll go like, as a brief example, what are the medical benefits of hibiscus? If you tell [00:07:00] me, I'll be like, wait, I need to pick up my phone check. So do I. But if I was a normal person, I have no idea of medical knowledge, where am I gonna get the information?
But then every article will say something else. Here we have curated our data to give as much information as possible, or to give as much as information as the user asks for. Okay, my last question, of course, I want to listen to Engineer Hassan, the person, the human being, the ambition. The vision. I mean, you've been talking about Dr.
Layla and you spoke a lot, and I need to know more about you. Uh, tell us what is your ambition? Um, how do you want, where do you want to be? Do you have, I mean, is your ambition and connected with what you are doing with the project of Dr. Layla? Is it more broad? Tell us about you as well, and, and one to two minutes.
So artificial intelligence is one of my biggest passions. Mm-hmm. Back in my undergrads in 2017, I actually made research papers and everything in regards to artificial intelligence. Back [00:08:00] then, it was just used for games. Mm-hmm. Or, uh, simulations, flight simulations and all of that. It's not something that was like wildly accepted, like how it is now.
So this comes from. A place of passion as well as biomedical university. Being my family business, I am third generation. The founder was my grandfather. This is my legacy. This is something that I want. I want to help our students. I want to give them more opportunities. I want to share with them my passion that I have for artificial intelligence and show them and the people, this is possible, that we shouldn't limit ourselves.
Like everybody who will keep to our boots. These last two days, they're like plants. What are you guys doing with ai? So it's like, where, where are you guys coming from? You shouldn't limit yourself. AI is not just a technology thing. It's something that we could implement in so many things. Amazing. Thank you very much.
Uh, we conclude with the famous, uh, slogan or proverb of, uh, uh, Sheik Muhammad, but Rashad Alto. Uh, said, uh, um, I [00:09:00] mean, uh, impossible as possible. And in the race for excellence, there is no finish line.