European rabbis award prize to mobile blood donation app

Council of European Rabbis gives 26,000 euro prize “Donor” app, created by Itsbeta, "encouraging Internet use for tikkun olam".

By HENRY ROME
Blood drive 370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Blood drive 370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Council of European Rabbis has awarded first prize in its inaugural Internet entrepreneurship contest to a mobile application that helps users keep track of blood donations.
The council on Tuesday gave a cash prize to an app called “Donor,” created by Itsbeta, which tells users in Moscow and St. Petersburg about blood drives and creates a system for organizations to reward donors for giving blood. The company received €26,000.
This is the “first time that a rabbinical organization has offered a reward for technological innovation on the premise that it is important to create a platform of dialogue between the cutting edge digital world and Jewish traditional values,” the council said.
The second-place winner, a free app called “Pruffi,” is a social networking tool that connects recruiters and job applicants.
An app called “Is it Kosher?” — which allows users to scan the bar code of a product to determine whether it is kosher — won third place. The fourth-place winner was “Chiourim,” an app that collects Jewish news.
Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the council’s president, said that “this prize is seeking to encourage the use of the Internet for the purpose of tikkun olam for the betterment of society and the world as whole.”