Some of you may have heard of SETI@Home, a project that puts together the computing power of thousands of computer to help compute the signals from the SETI program. The SETI program (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) utilized the screensavers of thousands of computers to create a virtual super computer. This type of technology is now being used for some worthy humanitarian purposes. Sure beats looking for little green men! :)
World Community Grid
This is an effort by IBM to create the world's largest computing grid, and is used to design new HIV drugs based on molecular structure on the Fight AIDS@Home project. It has also been used to predict the shape of human proteins for the Human Proteome Project. I've been running this on my home computer for about a year.
Africa@Home
This is a new grid computing project aimed at humanitarian causes in Africa. It was just released to the public this week, and the first project is to tackle malaria. They are trying to involve African students and university to develop and run these projects. Using normal methods, it would take 40 years to complete the required calculations. With grid computing, this can be completed within a few months. I'll be installing this on my home computer shortly.
For those who are curious about using massive computing grids to solve humanitarian problems, I encourage you to take a look at these projects and participate.
[Great news: The World Community Grid is starting to tackle a cancer project too!]
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