A ray of light, taken literally

Partaw (پرتو) is Dari for a ray of light — which is what an X-ray is, and what a reading gives back.

Light that reaches where specialists don’t

A radiograph is a beam of light passed through a body; a diagnosis is what a trained eye makes of it. In most of Afghanistan the first half of that sentence happens every day and the second half doesn’t. Partaw — the ray — is the promise that the reading travels to the film, rather than the patient traveling to the reader.

پرتو

partaw — a ray of light

Founder

Yasin Yaqoobi is an Afghan-American software engineer in Northern Virginia. Partaw began with a plain observation: Afghan clinics could take X-rays that nobody was in a position to read — and the machinery to fix that (a phone, a messaging app, a distant radiologist willing to look) already existed in everyone’s hands. He builds the platform; the clinical authority on every report belongs to the licensed radiologist who signs it.

Advisory board — forming now, founding seats open

We are assembling an advisory board across three responsibilities. Founding advisors are named here as seats fill — with their permission, their affiliation, and their role.

Clinical governance: What a safe reading service refuses to do: escalation rules, scope limits, and the standard every signed report is held to.; Open
Research design: What the studies must prove and how: endpoints, protocols, and the review pathway each partner institution requires.; Open
Data governance: Who touches the corpus and on what terms: consent, de-identification, access agreements, and the line we do not cross.; Open

Ask about a founding seat

Structure

Partaw Research is the research and public-good arm of Partaw. Formal nonprofit status is being established; we are seeking fiscal sponsorship in the meantime.

The teleradiology platform this mission runs on is built and operated by Partaw’s commercial arm, which serves paying clinics at partaw.com. The relationship is disclosed in protocols and publications, and any transaction between the two is kept at arm’s length and documented.