When someone loses excessive blood, there may be only minutes to act. In parts of Africa, precious time can slip away as healthcare workers scramble to locate scarce blood supplies. Blood shortages in Nigeria contribute to the deaths of 152,000 anemic children and 37,000 pregnant women each year.  
 
Temie Giwa-Tubosun faced a difficult birth on her journey to motherhood. But she had immediate access to a lifesaving operation, in stark contrast to a Nigerian mother she met a few years earlier who nearly died after three days in labor. This disparity led Temie to think seriously about maternal healthcare. “Between 30 and 50 percent of maternal deaths in Africa are from postpartum hemorrhage. Although I didn’t experience this, I felt if we could solve this, we would save a lot of mothers.”

Inspiration came when Temie, on location for her job managing product placements for films, learned that a blood bank was discarding blood even as people were dying from its lack. “Blood has a short shelf life; you have to discard it after six weeks. I thought, ‘All we have to do is move the excess blood to hospitals where patients desperately need it.’”