Crowdsourcing is huge right now. We're using it to refine ideas, local speed traps on the highway (Waze!), find the best cat videos (Reddit!), and start new businesses through programs like Kickstarter.
Georgia Tech recently came up with the idea of crowdsourcing funds to get scientific research programs going. The research that is selected for this program is extremely well filtered through a peer review process before it can be listed on the GTS page.
{Begin Ben tirade}Honestly, I consider this a little excessive. One of the cool things about programs like Kickstarter is that we get to decide what programs we want to fund. Having some professors pre-filter it takes a little bit of the fun out of it, in my opinion. Their intentions are good, the peer review process is intended to filter the research to that which is most likely to succeed. I think this intention actually allows us to forget how much we learn from scientific "failures".
{End Ben tirade}
This is a really cool program and I hope to see more of these in the future! For more information, hit the GTS website here.
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