Letter from the X-wow team
When you help someone, you feel good. We all share this instinct to serve other people, but if we are committed to honesty, we have to ask ourselves: how often do we listen to this instinct? How often do we ignore it? At x-wow.com, we are committed not only to listening to this instinct – and doing good for others – but also to helping you to do the same.
X-wow.com was founded scientists in biology and computing. While we spend our daytime working on cutting edge scientific research, we have always wanted to share our discoveries who dream to become scientists in the future so we created this platform to gather all the talented scientific mind to share, study, inspire and help each other. Currently, we are working to collaborate with a group of doctors from Newcastle University and Royal Victoria Infirmary to provide a digital pathology microscopic slide scanner to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi, Africa. In Malawi, this equipment is exceedingly rare, and because of its high costs, they need our support purchasing it. There is no way to overstate just what an impact our efforts through this campaign will make, as the equipment we aim to purchase will enable doctors in the UK to provide diagnosis and treatment advice remotely to young cancer patients in Malawi.
The equipment we intend to purchase, Microvisioneer, costs £4,850. Relative to other whole slide scanners, which cost £100,000 and more, Microvisioneer is an incredible deal. This is a powerful, portable tool that has the potential to save lives in Malawi, but we need your support to purchase and deliver it to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. Currently, we have come to you, friends, for help raising the funds that we need to purchase the Microvisioneer whole slide scanner.
Our funding goal is £4,850, to show our appreciation for your valuable support, we are offering commemorative pillows to anyone who contributes at least £35 to this campaign. These are pillows that you can cherish for a lifetime, featuring one-of-a-kind designs composed of hundreds of different, random white blood cells, inspired based on our collaborations with doctors from paediatric oncology and haematology in the UK.
Your pillow will be unlike any other pillow you have ever seen – and unlike any other pillow we ship to anyone else. Using RedBubble to manufacture and distribute the pillows, we can ship anywhere in the world. All of the profit will cover the costs of Microvisioneer. Whatever we raise above that amount, we will divert toward funding other x-wow.com projects in the future.
Take a look around at your loved ones. The next time you are driving by a hospital, think about how lucky you are to have access to the medical services that you do. There are many people who lack such access, and when cancer strikes, they are often without options. In today’s modern world, this should not happen. Children should not go without proper diagnosis and treatment, especially not when the price for such diagnosis and treatment is so relatively low.
Nothing is going to change, though, unless we come together and demand that it changes. This is your opportunity to follow your instinct to do good, to do so boldly and unabashedly. We invite you to be part of this campaign and to make a statement, that you are someone who cares and who takes action on behalf of those who lack the means to do so for themselves.
In addition to making a contribution to this campaign, we also ask that you spread the word about x-wow.com and our project to fund a Microvisioneer whole slide scanner for Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi. We appreciate all your support, both monetary and non-monetary, and we thank you for your time!