World Community Grid

World Community Grid (WCG) is a large public computing grid to work on scientific research projects that help people. People donate time on their personal computers to the project. The software can be set up to run only when the computer is not being used for other work.

WCG began operation on November 16, 2004. It is coordinated by IBM to use their Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) software. Software for the grid of personal computers is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Android operating systems.

World Community Grid's research projects have performed analysis of aspects of the human genome, HIV, dengue, muscular dystrophy, cancer, influenza, rice crop yields and renewable energy. 

Open projects running as of May 2015 are looking for drug treatments for the Ebola virus and HIV, seeking new materials for the next generation of solar cells, comparing genomes of many organisms, and investigating cancer genes. As of May 2015, the organization has partnered with 467 other companies and organizations to help its work, and has over 65,000 active registered users.

References

Other websites
 World Community Grid website 
The New York Times > Technology > Unused PC Power to Run Grid for Unraveling Disease
Computerworld announcement article (2004) 

Category:Computing
Category:Research organizations in the United States
Category:2004 establishments in the United States
Category:Charities of the United States