Matipa Ledwaba, a Save7 member, and Jonty Wright, who founded Save7, after meeting patients in hospital who are desperately awaiting organs. Picture: Supplied
August is internationally recognised as Organ Donor Month.
While the number of patients waiting for transplants continues to increase, the serious shortage of potential donors remains a great concern.
A group of tech-savvy Stellenbosch University (SU) medical students are on a mission to use technology to turn the tide on organ donor shortage.
The students are harnessing the power of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to raise much-needed awareness of organ donation in South Africa.
Few South Africans know they have the potential to save seven lives by donating their kidneys, heart, and lungs after they die.
An initiative driven by Save7, a non-profit organisation founded by students, aims to spread awareness about organ donation among the younger generation and simplify the complex administrative processes.
Jonty Wright, a third-year medical student, founded Save7 after meeting patients in hospital who were desperately awaiting organs.
According to Wright there was nothing more doctors could do for the patients and they were waiting to die.
He said: “Something felt deeply wrong with that, and I knew we had to do something.”
Wright decided to take matters into his own hands and, true to his Gen Z, nature he turned to technology.
He shared that he built a website to raise awareness, and then taught himself to programme an AI chatbot to answer questions about organ donation in South Africa.
His parents are graphic designers and helped bring the Save7 brand to life with bold graphics that appeal to a young, digital-savvy audience.
“We needed to make this difficult topic easier for the public to engage with, so we focused our narrative more on ‘multiplying life’ in the present, than on thinking about death in the future.”
Save7 has partnered with the Organ Donor Foundation of South Africa to allow users to register as organ donors in less than a minute.
The Save7 team has also made it easy for users to encourage their friends and family to register as donors and have the same conversations with their family using a WhatsApp API.
They’re running a campaign that aims to reach more than one million South Africans by the end of August.
Professor Elmin Steyn, transplant surgeon and head of surgery at SU and Tygerberg Hospital, said it was heart-warming to see compassionate young medical students deploy AI technology and social media to help the less fortunate.
“This campaign has the potential to boost organ donation not only in South Africa, but worldwide. Everyone should support it!”
Sachen Naidu, Save7 treasurer, explained that the one million mission involved meticulously documenting their progress, analysing what strategies proved effective and what fell short.
“We believe that by sharing our campaign experiences in a developing country, we can simplify the process for others in similar situations.”
Weekend Argus
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