Inspiration
The world is moving at a very fast pace. We need to stop and think as to how we can make a difference. Everyday, thousands of people die due to lack of blood. Messages requesting for blood donations in case of emergencies, are sent through WhatsApp and other social media. We wanted to build an app that would streamline these messages and send it to those who actually can donate and are willing to donate. One might ask "Why?", because blood banks do exist. But in order to be able to provide the best medical services, fresh blood is any day better than stored blood. This app is our small step in what could possibly be the future of blood donation.
What it does
Our web-app mainly has two interfaces.
- One for the general public, where they can sign up for blood donation.
- The other for the hospitals, where they can update information regarding which blood group is required and in what quantity.
Using these details, we fetch information from the database of donors having the same blood group and who are eligible to donate blood. We are also trying to see if it is possible to get the donors' current location and then, depending on who is in the closest proximity to the hospital, place emergency calls to them.
How we built it
We used Laravel-The PHP framework for web artisans. We also used the ExotelAPI to trigger sending SMS's as soon as data is fetched from the database.
Challenges we ran into
Different versions of Laravel:P We slightly struggled to set it up. We are also trying to figure out a way to integrate telegram in order to help information reach more people and faster.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We had to change our idea mid-way through the Hackathon. So we're really proud of the fact that we kept going and did not give up. And we genuinely believe our idea can make a difference, however small.
What we learned
We were exposed to the huge number of API's out there. We were also exposed to a bunch of brilliant ideas by our own peers which is very inspiring.
What's next for Donate! Don't be late.
We would love to expand this project and actively involve blood banks as well as other hospitals, thereby creating a huge network for the medical industry. This project could also be expanded to facilitate organ donation (co-incidentally yesterday was World Organ Donation Day). We would also love to use more technology to make this project more feasible and efficient.
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