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1xINTERNET is a regular contributor to the Drupal project.
World Cancer Day, an initiative led by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), is an annual global event dedicated to raising cancer awareness. The campaign’s website plays a crucial role in this mission, requiring robust performance to manage the high traffic spikes leading up to and on the day itself. 1xINTERNET partnered with UICC to support the development and maintenance of this key digital platform.
To ensure a seamless experience for a worldwide audience, a scalable, globally distributed hosting solution efficiently manages heavy traffic and simultaneous requests during peak periods. The site features a visually engaging accessible design, providing important resources and informational content, with interactive tools like a custom poster creator, event planner, and interactive map. This Drupal based website guarantees uninterrupted access for visitors around the world on World Cancer Day.
About the project
Empowering collective action
Since 2020, 1xINTERNET has been a proud partner to UICC, working consistently to enhance both the World Cancer Day website and UICC’s main website. Throughout the year, the World Cancer Day website serves as an important resource for information about cancer with advice about how to promote cancer awareness. In the days leading up to and on World Cancer Day itself, it provides tools to help individuals organise activities, participate, and take meaningful action. This website is instrumental in driving the collective engagement needed for the global fight against cancer.
World Cancer Day in numbers
| +42,410 sessions | +527,985 page views | +1,324 custom posters created | +59,117 visitors |
UICC’s World Cancer Day initiative aims to inspire collective action and strengthen community by encouraging people worldwide to get involved. User engagement is crucial to the platform’s impact, demonstrated by a rise in downloads and increased use of its tools and resources. Each year, growing traffic and interaction underscore the initiative's success, with the website playing an essential role in sustaining this momentum.
| Multilingual accessible content | Decoupled Search API | Social Media Engagement |
| The design relaunch prioritised accessibility and is multilingual, essential for a global platform that seeks to reach the widest audience possible. | The decoupled search API allows users to locate resources, from downloadable information to event and activity planning tools. | In 2024, World Cancer Day achieved over 750 million views, with more than 500,000 social media posts shared. Custom posts can be generated on the website, making sharing across social platforms easy and impactful. |
INNOVATION
Scaling impact with Drupal AI
In recent years, World Cancer Day has experienced record levels of engagement, with hundreds of user stories submitted, each needing moderation before publication. While this surge highlights the campaign’s growing success, it also introduced a time-consuming challenge for the team.
To prepare for continued growth, UICC set out to enhance its moderation workflows by integrating Drupal AI. This innovation will empower World Cancer Day to efficiently manage and scale user-generated content while preserving its quality and relevance. Specifically, it will enable the campaign to:
| Handle high volumes of submissions | Maintain content quality and relevance | Streamline moderation workflows | Support engagement and inclusivity |
| AI will automatically moderate hundreds of stories, including text and images, reducing manual workload. | AI will check submissions for inappropriate content and ensure they relate to cancer before publication. | Approved content will be published immediately, while flagged submissions are sent to human moderators with AI-provided context, explaining the reason for rejection. | By managing submissions at scale, more people will be able to share their experiences, keeping the campaign’s focus on placing people at the centre of care. |
Client quote:
I wanted to extend a big thanks to 1xINTERNET for being so quick to respond, actually staying with us throughout the day (as an extension of the team in Geneva) to make sure that the website stayed up and was fully functional and responsive for our users. While there were a few learnings in the scale up of the server, we were really happy to see the website remain responsive to the growing number of people who accessed worldcancerday.org. So a big thank you to the team!"
Charles Andrew Revkin, Senior Digital Strategy Manager, Union for International Cancer Control (UICC)
HIGHLIGHTS
Scalable Hosting for high traffic demand
With a global audience, the platform experiences significant visitor surges leading up to and on World Cancer Day each February. To manage this, a dedicated DevOps team monitors the site 24/7. The robust, scalable hosting infrastructure ensures traffic spikes are handled smoothly, keeping the site fully operational.
Custom Poster Creator tool
An interactive tool enables users to create personalised posters on the World Cancer Day website, tailored to individual events while preserving consistent branding. Developed in React, the feature lets users upload images, add text, and preview edits instantly. It also allows for easy creation and sharing of custom social media posts, helping spread the message of cancer awareness widely.
Resource Toolkit
The comprehensive resource toolkit offers essential information, inspiration, and practical guidance for planning and organising World Cancer Day events, supporting users to spread awareness.
Interactive activity map
A global activity map displays cancer-related events worldwide. Local organisations and communities can add their own in-person or virtual events, allowing visitors to explore and connect to activities across the globe.
Dynamic Scrollytelling
Scrollytelling elements enhance user interaction, combining visually appealing Lottie animations with illustrations for an immersive scrolling experience that encourages users to explore the content.
Stories of Hope and Community
The 'Stories' section shares the personal experiences of those impacted by cancer, offering hope and unity. Users can react to stories, show support, and are invited to share their own experiences, whether through text, video, or artwork, using a guided submission process.
Why Drupal was chosen
This non-profit project highlights the robust data handling capabilities and versatile functionality that a Drupal-based website can deliver. Even during peak usage, with data transfers surpassing 135 gigabytes per hour, Drupal ensures smooth performance. New features like scrollytelling, an enhanced search, an improved activities map, and engaging story listings create a more interactive user experience, showcasing the full potential of Drupal to provide a modern engaging website.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
