RaktaSetu – Bridging Lives Through AI, One Drop at a Time

Inspiration

Thalassemia patients require regular blood transfusions, yet in India, many struggle to find timely and compatible donors. The emotional weight of watching families in distress, coupled with the inefficiencies in existing donor systems, pushed us to rethink how technology could serve as a bridge — not just between patients and donors, but between hope and action.

The name RaktaSetu (Sanskrit: "Blood Bridge") reflects both our cultural roots and our vision — to build an intelligent, compassionate, and real-time ecosystem that ensures no patient waits too long for a drop that could save their life.

What it does

RaktaSetu is a real-time, AI-powered platform that:

• Connects Thalassemia patients with eligible blood donors or nearby blood banks.
• Uses AI and geolocation filtering to match patients with the best-fit donors.
• Integrates with national systems like e-RaktKosh and Blood Warriors' Blood Bridge.
• Sends smart, automated notifications to donors and NGOs using workflow automation.
• Includes a gamified donor dashboard with reward points and impact stats.
• Offers an AI-powered chatbot for health education, donation reminders, and awareness support.
• Provides real-time blood bank stock monitoring and triggers alerts when critical levels are reached.

How we built it

Our tech stack was chosen for speed, modularity, and scalability:

• Frontend: Built using React.js to create a clean, user-friendly dashboard for patients and donors.
• Backend & Automation: Powered by n8n, an open-source workflow automation tool that helped us:
  • Handle donor matching logic
  • Trigger real-time alerts
  • Communicate with Airtable and third-party APIs
• Database: Airtable was used to store donor and patient data, blood bank stock, and request history.
• AI Integration: Integrated OpenAI APIs in n8n for generating personalized donor messages and chatbot responses.
• APIs & Integration:
  • Simulated integration with e-RaktKosh for checking real-time blood bank availability
  • Hooked into Blood Bridge (via form/forwarding) for community coordination
• Location Matching: Used the Haversine formula via n8n HTTP nodes to calculate distance between donor and patient coordinates.

Challenges we ran into

• Data Privacy & Security: Handling sensitive health data required encryption and safe transfer across workflows.
• Real-time Matching: Filtering donors by location, blood type, and last donation time while minimizing delays was tricky.
• API Access: e-RaktKosh doesn’t have open API documentation, so we had to simulate their response for our prototype.
• Multi-party Coordination: Integrating donors, patients, NGOs, and blood banks into one smooth flow required careful orchestration.
• AI Message Safety: Ensuring the AI responses were accurate, emotionally sensitive, and medically responsible. ## Accomplishments that we're proud of
• Successfully built a fully automated, end-to-end donor request and alert system using n8n workflows.
• Designed a modular frontend that supports both donor engagement and patient requests.
• Created an AI-powered personalized donor notification system that mimics human-like encouragement.
• Integrated (mocked) national systems like e-RaktKosh and Blood Bridge to show real-world impact readiness.
• Implemented a gamified rewards system that encourages recurring donation and celebrates impact. ## 📚 What we learned
• How to use n8n for building powerful workflow automations without a traditional backend.
• The importance of designing for scalability and reliability in life-critical health systems.
• How to combine human empathy and technical intelligence in AI-generated messaging.
• Realized that a good healthtech solution needs to work as much for NGOs and coordinators as it does for patients and users.
• Learned how to leverage Airtable as a backend layer for rapid prototyping of data-driven systems.

What's next for RaktaSetu

• Live integration with e-RaktKosh and formal API access from Blood Warriors’ Blood Bridge.
• Deploy to the public via a mobile-first PWA or Android app.
• Add multi-language support (Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, etc.) to expand accessibility.
• Incorporate donor verification, appointment scheduling, and feedback loop after every donation.
• Build a redeemable rewards store and community leaderboard for donor engagement.
• Collaborate with hospitals and NGOs to pilot RaktaSetu in real-world transfusion centers.
• Use AI to analyze regional trends in blood shortages and predict future demand to inform camp planning. > “A single drop can make the difference between despair and hope. RaktaSetu exists to make sure that drop finds its way — intelligently, compassionately, and in time.”

Built With

• airtable
• e-raktkosh
• ericsson-web-maps
• n8n
• openai
• pinecone
• react.js