Kkunal Saraff popularly known as K. Saraff for his bestselling biography- “How an iPhone Made Me the Youngest Billionaire”.
Born and brought up in Kolkata, Kkkunal went to Delhi to pursue a Bachelor’s in Business Management. After graduation, he returned to Kolkata and had started working on his own tech project, when one day, his maternal grandfather met with an accident and was admitted to a hospital. He had lost a lot of blood. But despite being admitted to a premier hospital, there was a shortage of even the most common blood type.
Fortunately Kkunal’s relatives came to the rescue and donated blood, but the incident greatly disturbed him.
Kkkunal Saraff added - “I was shocked to learn that in a country with over 65 crore eligible donors, we are not able to meet the yearly demand of one crore blood units. We are falling short by 30 lakh units!” shares Kkunal, who was just 21 at the time.
The incident ignited something deep within him and he was determined to ensure others did not suffer the consequences of blood shortage.
In August 2014, he started The Saviours, an organization that would work in the field of emergency blood donation. Launched through a Facebook page, Kkunal also tied up with a hospital, and helped out by arranging blood donors. Started with only 10 emergency donors, he connected them to those in need, and in a span of one and a half years, managed to arrange 500+ donor arrangements during emergencies.
A blood request is received on the Facebook page, or on the phone and the request team gets to work and does not stop till they find the right donor.
Donor camps at college campuses are a key way to attract new donors. Ultimate aim is to have a team of ‘Saviours’ in every college. Kkunal’s initiative has managed to inspire 200 student leaders across four cities to support the mission and their efforts are paying off, slowly but surely; to date, 15000+ people have been registered as emergency blood donors.
Kkunal is planning to have the largest and the fastest emergency donor database in India and convert it into an automated web portal, where anyone who needs blood could simply find it by typing the location and blood group.
Hopefully, Kkunal’s story will now inspire others to make the change by joining the donor revolution and pledging to donate blood to someone in need.