Commentary
Photojojo Founder Amit Gupta Continues Search For Bone Marrow Donor Through Social Media
- by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 22, 2011
As Thanksgiving approaches, we reflect on things for
which we are thankful. Diagnosed with acute leukemia at 32, Amit Gupta, the founder of photo community site Photojojo and friend of many Googlers, will likely give thanks to those who created a social
media video uploaded to YouTube and set ablaze across Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.
Chemotherapy left Amit Gupta with corneal damage that caused a lot of eye pain and made it difficult for him to see, read, or use the computer last week, but on Monday he managed to catch up with correspondence and respond to my email. And while he's going through chemotherapy, doctors say his best hope is to find a bone marrow donor.
A video produced by a friend of a friend and uploaded to YouTube asks able parties -- especially of South Asian descent -- to send in cheek swabs and organize donor drives to find a match. There have been more than four dozen donor drives from Mountain View, Calif. to New York to India. Many of the donor drives will occur this week and next.
Gupta's chances of finding a match are one in 20,000, because less than 1% of the 10 million National Bone Marrow Registry registrants are of South Asian origin. He has until Nov. 30.
Marketing maven Seth Godin is among those pushing to find help, offering up a check for $10,000 to the cheek-swab donor who matches Gupta's bone marrow. Michael Galpert, co-founder of Aviary, along with Jake Lodwick, co-founder of Vimeo, has matched the donation, bringing the total to $30,000, reports CTV News.
It's really powerful what his friends do for him, and I pray they are successful, a Google spokesperson told MediaPost. "There are flyers around the Google campus in support of finding him a donor match," the spokesperson said.
Laurie Sullivan is a writer and editor for MediaPost. You can reach Laurie at lauriesullivan@gmail.com.