When you're looking for free screensavers online, there's no better solution than the World Community Grid, a worldwide network of computer users who donate their computer idle time to the computational needs of important scientific research projects. Robin Willner, the Vice President of IBM's Global Community Initiatives, describes the kind of important projects the World Community Grid dedicates its resources to, and how you can help make the world a better place by using the one of the Grid's free screensavers online.
Free Screensavers Online at The World Community Grid
LoveToKnow: Could you describe how the World Community Grid was started?
Robin Willner: In 2004, IBM was doing a lot of work with grid technology and different infrastructure opportunities. One was a cancer project connected to Oxford. Through that work, we were introduced to this kind of public distributed grid. So that was the point where we developed some experience with this. We felt that there were so many important research challenges that don't have access to the kind of computational power that they need. This seemed like a great opportunity for us to take some great cutting edge technology and link it to our humanitarian work, and the sort of work that I'm responsible for, which is corporate citizenship and corporate affairs.
LTK: For readers who are not tech savvy, could you describe how the grid works?
RW: Sure. I'm the perfect person because I'm not a technical person! It is called a distributed grid; it's a public grid that you access on the Internet. With any device - Windows, Linux or a Mac - if you're connected to the Internet, you just go to WorldCommunityGrid.org, and download a very small, "dumb" piece of software (a free screensaver online). It's important that it's a "dumb" piece of software, because it can only do one thing. It can run the algorithm that it's assigned, a "work unit", and then it can connect to the World Community Grid, or "mother ship" if you will, and it says it's finished the assignment and gets another one. It cannot read anything on your hard drive, it can't affect your hard drive or any of the work that you're doing, and it cannot initiate contact or receive contact from any other website. That's all very important, because it needs to be secure.
LTK: It only occasionally contacts World Community Grid servers?
RW: Yes, it does all of the work offline. That's an important thing. Once you've downloaded the software, it knows when you've stopped using your keyboard and it starts running its assignment. All that work is done locally, for security reasons. We don't want people to constantly have to connect to the Internet. The minute it finishes its assignment, the next time you connect it will, in literally seconds, contact the World Community Grid, send the completed work and receive new work. Most people underestimate the amount of idle time they have available on their computer. That's not to say that people are idle, but that their computers have idle time. It's idle every time you get up to get a cup of coffee, walk over to talk to a friend, or you pick up the phone. Even if you're using your keyboard, and you pause to consider what you want to write next, we'll take advantage of that time. That's "idle" time.
The Scientific Research at World Community Grid
LTK: Who comes up with the research that gets completed by the Grid?
RW: They are all from key scientists working in the field, either universities or non-profit organizations who have come up against some kind of barrier and can't get access to the kind of computational time they need. They may have an idea for a new approach. They can go to WorldCommunityGrid.org and submit a research proposal.
LTK: Since 2004, have there been any tangible research results?
RW: Well, we've completed a lot of research. There are two things that I can think of as examples of what we've done that are particularly important. One is that, while we've not yet found the next generation of drugs for HIV/AIDS, we have made considerable headway by reviewing almost 300,000 chemicals and proteins. We've learned everything we could about them, so that researchers could identify a number that was less than forty that they could actually take into the lab for testing. So, we haven't closed on the one that's going to be most effective, but we have taken a dramatic step.
LTK: So the grid helps scientists process data that they need in the lab?
RW: Exactly, you still have to go to that laboratory step. What scientists have done in the past is to take whatever they knew, whatever they could learn, and of course their good sense and intuition, and start there. What we do is things like examining almost 300,000 possible proteins and chemicals, and we're going to give you an enormous amount of information about all of those so that you can, in a very thoughtful and deliberate way, find the best candidate for that very expensive and time-intensive laboratory testing.
Another success story is that we've done some work with the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers University. The goal there was to test a new approach to analyzing biopsies. When you want to look at a cancer biopsy, the most important thing is to get it as accurate as possible and to detect any growths as early as possible. They've developed a new approach to do that by digitizing biopsies. So, instead of eyeballing them, you digitize two and compare them to determine the right treatment. If you digitize them, you can get a much more accurate match than even the most terrific diagnostician could just using existing approaches.
So, the people at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey were at a place where they needed to complete a proof of concept in order to get funding to go forward. They couldn't complete the proof of concept without computational power, and they couldn't get the computational power because they didn't have funding. This is a perfect story for World Community Grid. We provided the computational power. In less than six months, we completed all of the work. We completed their proof of concept, and they got a multi-million dollar grant from the National Institute of Health to start creating a national database of these new digitized biopsies.
Spreading The Word about Donating Idle Time
LTK: Has the grid grown significantly over the years?
RW: Yes, it grows regularly. As of two hours ago we have 1,230,269 devices. The growth has peaks and valleys, such as whenever we announce a new research project. Last year for World AIDS Day, we had a bunch of challenges online, we had an island in Second Life, and we even have a Facebook application. We also have a bunch of videos on YouTube.
LTK: Do you have a project that's your own personal favorite?
RW: Well, you know, a mother loves all her children (laughs). I can't choose any one. Improving the efficiency and lowering the cost of solar energy, finding treatments for Dengue Fever, a horrible disease in the tropics that has no treatment today, though hundreds of thousands are affected every year - these are wonderful projects. HIV/AIDS - absolutely, we need to find the next generation of drugs because the virus will mutate and grow. So, these are all absolutely incredible projects. There's a project we just launched two weeks ago with the Chiba Cancer Institute in Japan on Pediatric Cancer. It's called neuroblastoma, which is a particularly horrible cancer in that it only affects very young children. I will say, in terms of the personal aspect, I received emails from three different IBM'ers, from around the world, who have children who are struggling with neuroblastoma. They contacted me to say that they had no idea that we were going to do this project, and how wonderful it was, and that it gave them hope that there would be an answer someday.
I am very privileged that IBM is the kind of place that invests in the community work that we do, and I'm very privileged to be able to lead a lot of that work.
Final Words
As Robin Willner describes in this interview, the World Community Grid is one of the simplest ways that computer users around the world can donate one of the cheapest resources that they have available to donate - their computer's idle time. Learn more by visiting the World Community Grid and signing up today. It's quick and easy, and it will make you feel great.
