If you had the opportunity to save someone's life, would you do it?

Well, you might. Right now. As soon as possible. Especially if you're of South Asian descent — an ethnic group including about 75,000 of you in Harris County and Fort Bend County alone. Not to mention that Houston's South Asian community is one of the fastest growing South Asian communities in the entire country.

It goes like this: Happy, healthy, headstrong Silicon Valley entrepreneur Amit Gupta, founder of quirky photography site Photojojo and casual coworking movement Jelly, was suddenly feeling worn out and was losing an alarming amount of weight. So he consulted his physician.

Instead of, "Get more sleep and eat more pizza, son," the doctor had another diagnosis that would change the trajectory of this thirtysomething's life.

"Amit, you’ve got Acute Leukemia," Gupta wrote in his blog. "You need to enter treatment right away.”

It could've been worse, but not by much. Through further research, he learned, "If it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks."

Even with a few months of chemotherapy ahead of him, the worst part has yet to come. In order to save his life, Gupta's got to find a needle in a haystack.

"The next step is a bone marrow transplant," Gupta wrote. "Minorities are severely underrepresented in the bone marrow pool, and I need help."

By "severely represented," Gupta is being way, way too nice. Try one out of 20,000. That's the very real chance that Gupta has in finding an eligible donor in the national Be the Match bone marrow registry.

That's where you come in, Houston's emerging South Asian population. You can save the life of one of tech's brightest minds.

Want to help? There are a few things you can do right now:

1. Take a free test by mail. It's the best way to see if you're Gupta's bone marrow match. Complete an online form, wait for your registration kit, swab the inside of your cheek, send it back. Saving someone's life couldn't be easier.
   
2. Organize a donor drive. Instructions on Gupta's blog direct you to email 100kcheeks@gmail.com, and you'll get a script and the tools to make a donor drive happen.
   
3. Attend an event. Gupta's friends are throwing him a potentially life-saving party — affectionately and effectively titled, "WANTED: Brown Bones" — and if you're in New York City, bring your bone marrow on down.

There's even $30,000 in it for you, if your swabbing leads to saving Gupta. You can thank author Seth Godin and fellow startup mastermind Michael Galpert for the initial $20,000, and give props to Vimeo co-founder Jake Lodwick for kicking in the last $10,000.

Sure, there are plenty of people in this world awaiting a bone marrow match. How often are you called upon to help them? How often have you helped?

Maybe you ought to consider making the answer to those questions, "Today."