World Community Grid enables anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet to donate their unused computing power to advance cutting-edge scientific research on topics related to health, poverty and sustainability. Through the contributions of volunteers all over the globe, World Community Grid has supported 31 research projects to date, including searches for more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS and under-researched tropical diseases. Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems and new materials for capturing solar energy efficiently.
Advancing scientific discovery
World Community Grid has enabled important scientific advances in cancer treatment and clean energy. Our research partners have published over 35 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals and have completed millions of CPU-years of computation in less than a decade. World Community Grid is the biggest volunteer computing initiative devoted to humanitarian science, and is as powerful as some of the world's fastest supercomputers.
Advancing scientific discovery
On the cusp of current trends
World Community Grid brings together volunteers and researchers at the intersection of computational biology, open science, open data, and citizen science - four trends that are transforming the way research is conducted. World Community Grid was one of the first to use GPUs to accelerate scientific computation on the Help Conquer Cancer project, and in 2013, it also became one of the first major volunteer computing initiatives to enable mobile computing on Android smartphones and tablets.
On the cusp of current trends
An award-winning program
The pioneering work done on World Community Grid has been recognized internationally with awards, including the Computerworld Data+ Editors’ Choice Award, Business in the Community Coffey International Award, and the Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility's Asian CSR Award.
History
World Community Grid began in 2004 as a philanthropic initiative of IBM Corporate Social Responsibility, the corporate social responsibility and philanthropy division of IBM. Through Corporate Social Responsibility, IBM donates its technology and talent to address some of the world's most pressing social and environmental issues.
Who we are?
In 2021, IBM transferred the World Community Grid assets to Krembil Research Institute, part of the University Health Network (UHN). While sharing the goals and principles of WCG, Krembil Research Institute aims to expand the mission of citizen science, youth outreach and integrative computational biology.
UHN has Canada’s largest hospital-based research program, comprising four major teaching hospitals (Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto General Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and The Michener Institute of Education). In total, UHN devotes C$450 million a year to research and trains more than 3,200 undergraduate, graduate and medical students at its member hospitals and institutes in association with the University of Toronto.
Dr. Igor Jurisica’s research is connected to the Toronto Western Hospital and the hospital’s research arm, the Krembil Research Institute; a non-profit academic biomedical research institute. Research within Krembil is focused on the development of diagnostics, treatments and management strategies in the following three programmatic areas: [i] chronic neurological/neurosurgical disorders (e.g., Parkinson's disease, stroke, epilepsy, spinal cord injuries, dementia, concussion, pain and depression); [ii] ophthalmologic disorders (e.g., glaucoma, macular degeneration, retinopathy); and [iii] musculoskeletal system disorders (e.g., osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, ankylosing spondylitis).