Are you a person who leaves your computer on all the time including when you're asleep? Can't find a way to force yourself to shut down everytime you're not using your computer?
Then the World Community Grid is for you!
What exactly is the World Community Grid?
It is a large scale initiative supported by IBM, where the processing powers of idle PCs around the world are combined to process research data for not-for-profit organisations and research labs around the world. Through the use of grid computing, packets of data that require processing are sent to idle PCs under the program. This has saved labs around the world an immense amount of cost and time which would have been incurred should the labs have to process the data with their own computers! A quick example from 2003 - in less than three months scientists identified 44 potential treatments to fight the deadly smallpox disease. This process would have taken more than a year without grid computing.
What projects/initiatives are you contributing to?
