I've posted a couple times here before (mostly within posts pertaining to Amit Gupta's search for a bone marrow donor) and I wanted to share a site I've been working on for the past 5 months or so that recently went live. I'm going on my fifth year of being an Acute Myelogenous Leukemia survivor, and while I didn't need a bone marrow transplant myself, at one point it was a very real possibility. At that time I became aware of the lack of minority bone marrow donors and made a promise to myself to try to do something about it if I were to survive. This site is something of a fulfillment of that promise.
I don't know if this is explicitly HN-worthy, given that it's not a programmatically-impressive web app or a strictly technical exercise. But given the publicity that Amit's search for a donor has created for the cause, and some previous posts highlighting concerns around bone marrow donation, I felt like this submission may be relevant to the community. In the end, hacking is very much about finding a problem and solving it using technology. I was dissatisfied with the websites I found and the explanations I was given, so this is my attempt to solve that problem.
If this post gets any notice, the website may very likely go down given my shared hosting plan. I apologize in advance for that.
I hope nobody takes offense if I don't reply to every individual feedback item. I do appreciate all the feedback I've received thus far, and all of it is constructive in my book. Whatever makes the message/site better and more effective is in line with my goals. No better place for that kind of expertise than HN.
Just one disclaimer: I've received a few emails asking about overarching registration policy, the implementation for a buyer/seller market for donations, etc... I'm really not the right person for this type of question. Most of the time, if you're identifying a procedural inefficiency I agree with you, but I can't offer much input. Cheekswab as a site is not officially partnered with the NMDP in any capacity. Cheekswab isn't even a non-profit. Cheekswab is a website that I created in my bedroom/Starbucks in hopes of condensing some of the info I've found across the Internet on different sites and to personalize the cause. Not a cop out, just an explanation of scope.
I've posted a couple times here before (mostly within posts pertaining to Amit Gupta's search for a bone marrow donor) and I wanted to share a site I've been working on for the past 5 months or so that recently went live. I'm going on my fifth year of being an Acute Myelogenous Leukemia survivor, and while I didn't need a bone marrow transplant myself, at one point it was a very real possibility. At that time I became aware of the lack of minority bone marrow donors and made a promise to myself to try to do something about it if I were to survive. This site is something of a fulfillment of that promise.
I don't know if this is explicitly HN-worthy, given that it's not a programmatically-impressive web app or a strictly technical exercise. But given the publicity that Amit's search for a donor has created for the cause, and some previous posts highlighting concerns around bone marrow donation, I felt like this submission may be relevant to the community. In the end, hacking is very much about finding a problem and solving it using technology. I was dissatisfied with the websites I found and the explanations I was given, so this is my attempt to solve that problem.
If this post gets any notice, the website may very likely go down given my shared hosting plan. I apologize in advance for that.