When two young men, Sameer and Vinay, were diagnosed with leukemia and told they had a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a bone marrow match, their family and friends didn’t give up. Instead, they quickly jumped to action, and constructed a campaign like they would an organization. But instead of a revenue goal, their goal was to bank 20,000 South Asians into the bone marrow registry. Immediately.
Through on the ground efforts and by harnessing social media, Sameer and Vinay’s supporters registered 24,611 South Asians into the bone marrow registry in just 11 weeks and found a match for both. Tragically, both men passed away some months later. As many of you know, the probability of a match taking depends not just on the quality of the match but on how quickly one can get the match.
When Sameer and Vinay found out what their family and friends had done, the first words out of both of their mouths were: “let’s get another 25,000!” In honor of both remarkable people, we wanted to take their challenge and double it. Twice. The reality is: over 100 people are diagnosed with leukemia each day. Friends and families are searching for matches for these people every day, taking on the same challenge–how do we find a bone marrow match? Collectively, we can make a difference. Stanford’s 100k Cheeks and OpenIDEO have created a design challenge to help us think more broadly:
You likely know from reading this blog that for people with blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, a bone marrow transplant can be a life-saving course of treatment. What you might not know is that chances of finding a genetic match for a person in need of a transplant can be devastatingly slim. In fact, for people of South Asian descent, the likelihood of finding a matching donor is 1 out of 20,000. We know how to change this: we need more registered donors. But the question remains: How can we increase the number of registered donors to help save more lives?
To help answer this question, we’ve been hard at work on an OpenIDEO challenge with the support of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford, 100K Cheeks and IDEO. As social innovators, global connectors, and passionate changemakers, you have a unique perspective to offer to this OpenIDEO Challenge. How can we inspire a movement of people to join together in the fight against cancer? Take a few minutes to browse through the current list of Inspirations and consider how your own acumen can inform our community at large.
Thanks in advance for checking out the Challenge and contributing your own thoughts.
Ps. If you’ve not yet registered with OpenIDEO, here are some steps to help you get started:
1. Check out bit.ly/oi-bonemarrow to learn about our Challenge.
2. Create a new profile using the Login tab on the right, then click on the Inspirations tab to add your own ideas for growing the bone marrow registries.
3. Once you’ve uploaded an Inspiration (or 2 or 5!), let all your friends, family and colleagues know that they can do the same–tweet about the challenge, put it up on Facebook, send emails to your friends (here’s the link: http://bit.ly/bone_marrow), and share the video.