LifeBank from Nigeria is the first mobile application that allows potential blood donors to match with those in urgent need of blood based on their location.

The app is a result of a 3 day hackathon held in Lagos two weeks ago by a group of developers, designers and healthcare professionals.

Blood transfusion organisations around Africa and the world have been known to use social media and e-mail for raising awareness for “blood donations drives”.

South African National Blood Service uses social media extensively in raising awareness and in calling for blood donations at its various centres.

Meanwhile in the Bahamas they have the Red Donor website, which is a “Blood Donor Drive” awareness platform, a kind of Kickstarter for blood donations.

However, none of these organisations have done what a group of techies and designers in Nigeria have done in partnership with the One Percent Project - an organisation that aims to “bridge the gap between willing blood donors all around the country and the people that need them in times of emergency.”

ITWeb Africa correspondent Tefo Mohapi caught up with developer Oo Nwoye, and Temie Giwa, director at the One Percent Project to learn more about LifeBank.

Tefo Mohapi: How did you decide that a hackathon was the answer?

Temie Giwa: Access to blood in Nigeria is a major problem. The blood available is unsafe and our organisation has been working in this space for a year or so. Our goal is to make it easier for concerned Nigerians to give blood. We have been trying to create tech tools to make this possible. Oo, fortunately, had the same idea and access to awesome hackers and technologists in Nigeria. We picked a date, got sponsors, venues and got to work.

Oo Nwoye: I had been receiving numerous BBM broadcast messages about people requiring blood donors. I just wondered that there should be an app for this. I also wondered if it was possible to map blood types by locale.

Tefo Mohapi: You mention unsafe, how is blood being collected and dispensed currently in Nigeria?

Temie Giwa: The system is a bit fragmented. Although we have a central organisation called National Blood Transfusion Service. About 60% of blood collected is through paid donors through blood touts. 10% of HIV cases is still through blood transfusion.

Tefo Mohapi: Which technology solutions, as you mention, did you develop that have failed and how will LifeBank App be different?

Temie Gaiwa: We have a tool on our site that maps all blood donation centres, but that is not being used as much as we want. Also we haven't convinced a critical mass of Nigerians to sign up on our donor database. I am not sure if these can be called failures more like works in progress.

Oo Nwoye: In developing LifeBank, we wanted to have more people using it by making it cool and social, that is “shareable”. We created features such as “badges” which people can share with their social media connections to show they have registered as blood donors. The aim is to encourage people to interact and raise awareness about the app and get them to register as blood donors. The other aim is to have a large Nigerian database of people and blood types by locale.

Tefo Mohapi: Is this App limited to Nigeria as it has potential to scale across the continent if not globally?

Oo Nwoye: We are aware of that hence we are keeping it as an open source platform. The idea is to keep it open so that it can work like "WordPress" and can be deployed in any country with collaboration of blood transfusion organisations in each country.

Tefo Mohapi: Blood donation is not an online activity. Are the offline logistics in place to support the app?

Temie Giwa: The idea for the app is to send the right donor to a hospital where the patient is admitted. It is an emergency stop gap to save lives. We (One Percent Project) are working on other plans to fix regular non-emergency donations and testing. But for Lifebank, the goal is to connect the right donor to the patient and send that donor to the hospital where the patient needs the blood.

Tefo Mohapi: So the donor would still need to go to hospital at the time of emergency or beforehand?

Temie Giwa: At the time, or close to the time. Of course we can still invite donors to blood drives using the app but the main goal is to save lives during emergencies by targeting the right donor at the right time.