27 April 2011
Giving blood? There’s an app for that...
Photo opportunity: 2pm on Wednesday, 27th April at Queen Mother Building, University of Dundee. Kyle Montague will present James McLaren with a certificate and prize recognising his efforts in developing the MyBlood application.
A University of Dundee student has developed an mobile phone application to make it easier for existing and potential donors to give blood.
James McLaren, a 4th year Applied Computing student, began looking at how technology could be used for good and decided upon encouraging more people to give blood after speaking with Jamie Shek, himself a Dundee graduate and director of spin-out company iGiveADamn.
The concept of a blood donor app was originally conceived by Jamie and his business partner Kyle Montague but, as they were concentrating on other projects for iGiveADamn, it was not developed beyond the conceptual stage.
They were delighted that James was interested in taking the idea forward for his honours project, and supported him as developed it into ‘MyBlood’, a prototype app with real potential to increase the number of people giving blood and the frequency with which they do so. It works by providing users who download the app with a host of information relating to blood donation services.
MyBlood works to encourage increased levels of donations by:
- Keeping track of when the user last gave blood.
- Counting down to the users’ target for giving blood a certain number of times within a particular time period.
- Letting them know where and when the next blood donation service will be held.
- Giving them the option to invite friends through facebook and other social network sites to arrange group visits.
- Providing directions to sessions to make it as easy as possible for donors to give blood.
- Sending the latest news about blood donation and messages from people who have benefited direct to subscribers’ phones.
'For my honours project, I have been working in collaboration with Jamie and Kyle and it has been fantastic to learn from them and their experiences,' said James. 'The project consists of a mobile application aimed at blood donors to encourage them to give blood and make it easier to do so.
'The concept and prototype I've developed with iGiveADamn has the potential to become a real world application with a meaningful purpose. An app like this would encourage new and more frequent donations but more importantly help blood transfusion services maintain a constant supply of blood, benefiting the patients who need it.'
Kyle will present James with a certificate and prize from iGiveADamn in recognition of his hard work in developing the app at the School of Computing’s Degree Show in the Queen Mother Building at 2pm on Wednesday, 27th April. The Show will be open to the public from 4pm onwards.
iGiveADamn is a design consultancy for digital media, and both its founders are keen that it remains true to its original purpose of harnessing technology for the benefit of society.
'James has done a great job in developing MyBlood and hopefully this is a prototype that is taken further and has a real and positive impact on blood stocks,' said Jamie.
'An app that encourages increased levels of blood donation very much ties in with the objectives of iGiveADamn. Although we’re now branching out into other areas of digital design, our roots lie in this area and we still have a focus on using technology for more meaningful purposes.'
More information about iGiveADamn is available at www.igiveadamn.org.uk.
A host of industry figures will be among those viewing the projects from over 40 graduating students on the BSc Applied Computing course. A full list of the student projects, with further information on each, is available at: http://cds2011.computing.dundee.ac.uk/.
For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277 |
