Taipei Blood Center is a non-government as well as non-profit organization,

they don’t have authority to spread out blood shortage messages widely to public.

Furthermore, due to limited donation source (mainly from other organization or private individual) and lack of resource, they barely have media budget to disseminate blood shortage messages.

Without media budget,

we incorporated the ‘Blood Beacon’ into popular navigational apps that people already use and leveraging real-time data from the Blood Center.

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.

Every week in Taiwan, there are critical shortages in certain blood types.

In emergency situations, instant access to blood supplies can mean the difference between life and death.

This means although people are willing to donate blood,

yet donors don't donate at the right area and time

or the donated blood are not types that urgently needed.

Even more so, blood shortage comes up very sudden and unable to predict.

There’s no easy way for people to find out about blood shortages in daily lives.

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?

Taiwan’s smartphone penetration rate is ranked top 2 in the world. People often use navigational apps in their daily lives.

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

So we created an ingenious way

to reach donors: ‘Blood Beacon’.

The ‘Blood Beacon’ connects to real-time blood center inventory data.

When users look for locations on mobile devices,

the ‘location icon’ flips upside down

if there’s a shortage in a specific blood type.

It 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.

Taipei Blood Center barely have media budget to disseminate blood shortage messages and blood shortage comes up very sudden and unable to predict.

With the real-time inventory data,

how can we alert the people in 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.

When users look for locations on mobile devices, the ‘location icon’ connects to real-time blood center inventory data.

Existing users of this application could receive detailed real-time 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.

We first cooperated with the ‘Parking Lot App’,

an application with over 2 million users.

When 2 million users look for parking spaces,

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

When blood shortage strikes, the ‘location icon’ flips upside down to a ‘Blood Beacon’.

From March 6, 2019,

this idea has since been built into the ‘Parking Lot App’

allowing a long-term and close cooperation.

Leveraging real-time data from the Blood Center,

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.

This is just the beginning.

We will be cooperating with 4 additional food and transportation service related navigational applications (Mass Rapid Transit Express APP, Charge Spot APP…) in September of 2021,

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 Beacon’ has sped up the time it takes for us to get certain blood types, so we can focus on doing our best to save lives.

? In Taiwan, within a short two-month time (March and April of 2019), the number of first-time donors has exceeded 11,900 because of the alert via the app.

? 31 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

? Since this simple idea can be replicated in other apps,

there’s no need for additional media spending.

Leveraging real-time data, we can continue to help people in need by delivering the right blood types when and where they’re needed,

fundamentally resolving the blood shortage crisis in Taiwan.

Every week in Taiwan, there are critical shortages in certain blood types.

This means although people are willing to donate blood,

yet donors don't donate at the right area and time

or the donated blood are not types that urgently needed.

Even more so, blood shortage comes up very sudden and unable to predict.

If we don’t leverage real time blood inventory data,

we will never collect the blood type truly in need.

Therefore, ‘Blood Beacon’ connects the real time data,

motivating more people with matching blood type to donate their blood at the right time and place, shortening blood shortage’s time.