Blood shortages are also unpredictable and immediate.

There’s no easy way for people to find out about blood shortages,

so even though Taiwan is filled of willing donors,

it’s difficult to reach them with specific blood type when they’re needed most.

How can we immediately alert and mobilise people to donate in daily lives

and call for people with specific blood types to donate at the most needed time and area

in order to shorten the blood shortages time of certain types?

We discovered that the ‘location icon’ we all use daily to search locations looks just like a blood drop when flipped upside down.

And with that… the ‘Blood Beacon’ was born.

We incorporated the ‘Blood Beacon’ into a popular navigational app.

When users look for locations on mobile devices,

the ‘location icon’ connects them with real-time blood inventory data.

If there’s a shortage in a specific blood type, the ‘location icon’ flips upside down,

alerts the user to the blood type in demand,

and navigates them to the nearest blood donation center.

If there’s no shortage, the ‘location icon’ stays the same.

With the real-time inventory stats,

how can we alert the people without disturbing their daily lives?

We understand that people are reluctant to download extra apps,

so we incorporated the Blood Beacon into a popular navigational app that people already own and use.

Existing users of this application could receive detailed information

including blood type in shortage and blood donation location by using mobile phone, motivating more people with matching blood type to donate their blood.

From December 26th, 2018, this idea has since been permanently built into the ‘Parking Lot App’ allowing a long-term and close cooperation.

This idea is a certain and sustainable way in allowing blood donation center to spread blood shortage messages in daily lives without any media buy.

Therefore, when executing the idea,

except for the A4 poster that calls for people to download the application in every blood donation location, there is no other execution fee.

This is just the beginning.

We will be cooperating with 4 additional food and car service related navigational application in September of 2019, making this idea even more widely used.

Since the Blood Beacon went live,

we reduced the average blood shortage time from 35 hours to just 7.

Blood donations have become faster and more efficient than ever.

In Taiwan, within a short two-month time (January and February of 2019),

the number of first-time donors has exceeded 11,900 because of the alert via the app.

22 Taiwanese news agencies picked up the idea.

The upside down location icon, the starting point for the helping — Yahoo News

Making blood donation more effective — Malaysian News

Every parking spot is a starting point to assist these people — ET today News

And this year, 4 other navigational apps will also adopt the Blood Beacon.

This simple, creative idea gives the public real-time blood donation data,

exactly where and when they’re needed.