Purpose in Pink: 17-year-old builds AI platform to support breast cancer patients

At 10, Saiyette Aima could not decipher the medical language surrounding breast cancer. She understood its human consequences with unsettling clarity. Her grandmother, diagnosed with Stage 3 disease after noticing a small mark on her neck, began chemotherapy and radiation, and the family entered a period defined by treatment and uncertainty. For Saiyette, cancer ceased to be an abstract illness discussed by adults. It became part of home.

A few years later, the Dubai College student cut her hair and donated it through Locks of Hope, a Friends of Cancer Patients programme that provides wigs for people undergoing chemotherapy. “Hair loss is such a visible part of treatment for many patients, and it felt like a simple, practical thing I could do,” says Saiyette, now 17.

That gesture became the starting point for a much larger undertaking. Under her Pink for Purpose initiative, she created the For Her, For Hope fundraising campaign through YallaGive. Saiyette initially aimed to collect Dh5,000 by approaching her school, family, friends and the wider community. The final amount exceeded Dh10,000 and earned her recognition as YallaGive’s Fundraising Hero of the Month.

The money supported Pink Caravan, the Friends of Cancer Patients initiative that promotes awareness and offers free screenings. Its emphasis on early detection carried personal significance because Saiyette’s grandmother had already reached Stage 3 when doctors diagnosed her.

“Sometimes people care about an issue and aren’t sure what they can actually do to help,” she says. “Fundraising gives them a direct way to contribute.”

Saiyette soon recognised that a single campaign could address only part of the problem. Many people had questions they felt uncomfortable asking, while complex terminology made reliable health information difficult to absorb. She expanded Pink for Purpose into a YouTube channel featuring oncologists and other specialists discussing warning signs, screening, treatment, inherited risk, recovery and the emotional effects of cancer.

Her conversations with doctors reshaped her own understanding. Treatment varies widely between patients, and its effects may continue through physical symptoms, reduced confidence, fear of recurrence and uncertainty within families. “Cancer can affect almost every part of a person’s life,” she says.

Saiyette keeps each discussion straightforward, selecting qualified specialists whose expertise matches the subject. Her work later grew to include educational sessions and magazine content with IntelliJelly, which published her writing and featured an awareness video.

The most direct phase of her advocacy took her to India, where she helped organise free awareness and screening camps with doctors from AIIMS New Delhi and the National Cancer Institute in Jhajjar. Hundreds of women attended. Some received referrals for further evaluation, although Saiyette carefully stresses that the camps screened participants and did not diagnose cancer.

Conversations with attendees exposed practical barriers: uncertainty about bodily changes, limited opportunities to ask questions, and health advice obscured by language or terminology. “Giving someone health information is only useful if they can actually understand it and know what to do with it,” she says.

Those lessons now inform CareCheck, Saiyette’s proposed AI-powered breast-health platform. It will offer local-language guidance on breast self-awareness, allow users to record concerns, simplify medical information and locate nearby professional care. Doctors and healthcare organisations are reviewing its content, wording and safety boundaries.

“CareCheck does not diagnose cancer and it does not replace a doctor,” Saiyette says. Its purpose is more precise: helping a woman understand a concern, document it and reach appropriate care. For a student whose first response was to donate her hair, meaningful change still begins with a practical next step.