The solution is to find people understand social problems at a deep level - from professionals to those with the deepest personal experience of those problems - and bring them together with those who understand technology at its most profound: software developers, designers, and service designers.
The Social Innovation Camp was set up in London, in early 2008 and the first in Asia held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last November 9-11, 2012. Only six were selected out of 140 ideas across Asia, that is 4% acceptance rate, making it harder to get into the Social Innovation Camp compared to Harvard.
The Blood Donors Network was among the top six selected and is a reflection of my personal advocacy to promote regular blood donations in the Philippines. I myself is a blood donor for the past ten years and perceived that there should be a system to improve the supply of blood all year round in the country. Based from my personal experience, back in December 1997, I was afflicted with dengue fever and was confined at St. Lukes Hospital. The doctor informed me that my platelet count had dropped to critical level and need blood transfusion. However, the blood supply in the blood bank was, unfortunately low. The doctor told my relatives to call as many people as they could who would be willing to donate blood. And as expected, they called for help to as many people as they could.
This personal experience happens everyday to a lot of people. A never ending scenario that every time someone needs blood, a call for help is always the immediate response. A news article from Philstar.com dated 16 August 2011 states that a dengue patient usually needs 16 units of blood. On that same article, the Philippine Red Cross had reported that there were 125,000 dengue cases in 2010. That turns out to be 2 million blood units that they need for dengue alone not counting the other cases, such as accident victims, premature babies, patients undergoing major surgeries, those suffering from trauma, anemia, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, so on and so forth. Whereas, on the average, the PRC collected only 6,000 units of blood per year, thus this clearly shows that the supply cannot keep up with the demand. Based from my interview with Dr. Reyta from the Philippine Red Cross, on the average, there are 5 to 7 patients every minute who would be needing blood transfusion.
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| A screenshot from Philstar.com dated 16 August 2011 |
The Blood Donors Network team have identified three focus areas in order to solve the problem with validations during the interview from the doctors in Malaysia and the Philippines; 1) increase acquisition of new blood donors; 2) increase retention rate of existing blood donors, and 3) establish a comprehensive data of donors.
Thus, the Blood Donors Network platform would be based in web and mobile apps that would address the said core issues. This way, the voluntary donors would allow to register themselves into the community of blood donors. For the recipient, it could post the blood type request that they need through the Blood Donors Network mobile app which would be able to connect to the community of blood donors, geo-location based via SMS as well as an option to send through Facebook or Twitter.
It was a humbling experience at the Social Innovation Camp Asia. I got goosebumps when I met these brilliant people across Asia unselfishly contributing their time and talent to support a worthy cause. Not everyone would have this opportunity and with that, I am very grateful with the said experience. I deeply appreciated the support and efforts that my team poured into, to make the idea happen in just one weekend, from creating the business model up to the execution of both the web and mobile app prototypes. I was also amazed with the organizers of the Social Innovation Camp Asia that they were able to pull the event off with such a very lean team.
Here in the Philippines, the team would have meetings with telcos, corporations and hospitals for possible partnerships to be able to beta test the business model and the prototype for the next six months. We are also planning to roll-out the idea in the Asia region with the help of our team members in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, India and Singapore. Our Facebook app (https://www.facebook.com/BloodDonorsNetwork) have growing members in more than 8 cities across Asia since its inception last November 11. With these developments, the team will persevere with what they have started at the Social Innovation Camp Asia carrying along with that fundamental objectives in mind, to be able to promote healthy lifestyle, foster good deed, encourage the spirit of volunteerism, help a stranger, and more importantly, save someone's life.
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| Meet the top 6 From left to right: Andrew Tan (organizer of the Social Innovation Camp Asia), Chan Wai Jhet (Civic Ticket; Malaysia), Caryn Kong (LabRat; Malaysia), Wong Chee Yan (Sex Education in Mobile Apps; Malaysia), Joel Barquez (Blood Donors Network; Philippines), Amy Tan (Find Art; Singapore), and Ken Chester Wu (Booklat; Philippines). |
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| Creating the Business Model
Aside from the prototype development, the business model is also drawn out for sustainability as this is the nucleus of the whole activity where you could attract funding from the venture capitalists and angel investors.
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The Blood Donors Network team
From left to right: Tao Lin (China), Singaravelan Thirugnanasambandan (India), Krittika Kaewmamuang (Thailand), Sokha Rum (Cambodia), Joel Barquez (Philippines), Bernard Hor (Malaysia), Kristine Lauria (Singapore), Gerard Navarro (Philippines), Adeline See (Malaysia), Ronald Paglinawan (Philippines), and Chow Yee Hoong (Malaysia).
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One more thing...
The Blood Donors Network came in 2nd place at the recently concluded Social Innovation Camp Asia. Thank you very much for all the support.
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