Temie Giwa-Tubosun (née Oluwaloni Olamide Giwa), born in December 1985 in Ila-Orangun, Osun State, Nigeria, is a visionary Nigerian-American health entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of LifeBank, a groundbreaking health-tech enterprise that delivers essential medical supplies across Africa.
Her early upbringing in Ila, Ilesha, and Ibadan was deeply influenced by her family’s academic orientation.
At the age of ten, she relocated to the United States via the Diversity Visa Program, where she continued her education, completing high school in Minnesota, earning her bachelor’s from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and later her M.A. in International Public Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
A pivotal moment occurred in 2009 during her graduate internship in Abuja, where she witnessed the devastating consequence of blood shortages on maternal health.
Motivated by this and later intensified by the complications of childbirth in 2014, she founded an NGO called the One Percent Project in 2012, aimed at promoting voluntary blood donation and addressing systemic healthcare gaps.
In 2016, Temie transformed that vision into LifeBank, a logistics and data-driven platform designed to connect blood banks and hospitals for timely delivery of vital supplies like blood, oxygen, plasma, and vaccines.
Leveraging digital mapping tools, including Google Maps, LifeBank reduced delivery times dramatically, from 24 hours to under 45 minutes—saving countless lives.
Within a few years, the company had delivered over 26,000 medical products to more than 10,000 patients across nearly 700 hospitals in Nigeria today, LifeBank serves hospitals across multiple African markets including Kenya and Ethiopia.
Her work has drawn global recognition. In 2014, she was named by the BBC in its 100 Women Changing the World, celebrated as a bold and promising changemaker.
In 2019, she received the top prize at Jack Ma’s Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative, securing a $250,000 grant to scale LifeBank’s impact.
In 2020, she earned the Global Citizen Prize for Business Leader for her innovative healthcare delivery and her vital role during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with testing centers and free oxygen deliveries.
She also secured the Cartier Women’s Initiative Laureate for Sub-Saharan Africa, winning $100,000 in the “Improving Lives” category.
Temie’s model positions LifeBank as “the Amazon of healthcare”, a streamlined, dependable supply chain engine specifically for hospitals.
Beyond its logistics innovation, her leadership fosters a collaborative organizational culture that empowers employees and bridges hierarchical barriers.
Today, Temie Giwa-Tubosun stands as a leading force in African social entrepreneurship, an innovator who harnesses business and technology to meet urgent public health needs.
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