Vitalik Buterin Donates $4M To Uni For Pandemic Detection Tool

Vitalik Buterin donates $4 million in USDC to the University of New South Wales to support developments of pandemic detection tools so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

Professor Raina Macintyre noted:

“Imagine if someone had detected COVID-19 before it spread around the world — that is our vision.”

The Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin donates $4 million worth of USDC to the University of New South Wales in order to support the development of a pandemic detection tool. The capital equates to 5.3 million Australian dollars and is a part of buterin’s self-described moonshot unit-covid effort in partnership with the Shiba Inu meme coin project as well as the Crypto relief. The funds will support the development of a SHIB open-source intelligence-based EPIWATCH tool that utilizes artificial intelligence and open-source data in order to create early pandemic warning signs.

#Ethereum co-founder @VitalikButerin has gifted UNSW $5.3 million in #cryptocurrency to support the development of a #pandemic detection tool designed by @KirbyInstitute's Prof Raina MacIntyre.https://t.co/aYYhI1iQwR pic.twitter.com/Gy0l1xejel

— Kirby Institute, UNSW (@KirbyInstitute) May 12, 2022

Created by research head Raina Macintyre, the tool scans millions of items that are available online including social media and news reports to detect changes that can suggest increasing health concerns. Buterin outlined the importance of sharing data in a decentralized and open manner and speeding up the pandemic detection:

“Open analysis of public data is an excellent alternative to more intrusive forms of monitoring, which are also often only available to governments and other high bidders but closed to the public. By contrast, an open-source and open-access approach that allows researchers, including members of the public, to work collaboratively across the world can be more easily improved and scaled to detect new pandemics wherever they begin.”

The funding will be allocated to the newly named OSINT initiative led by UNSW’s Kirby Institue and Macintier also said that the idea was to make the tool accessible at a “grassroots” level and make sure that it covers more languages to reach smaller towns around the world:

“Imagine if someone had detected COVID-19 before it spread around the world — that is our vision. Using AI and real-time open-source data, EPIWATCH does not depend on people making reports. It is a great equalizer and can overcome weak health systems and censorship.”

@patientled research into the details of Long Covid symptoms:https://t.co/a2v6CeE7Sn

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 5, 2022

Earlier this month, the Balvi Filantropic Fund announced the first round of financial support for various projects and organizations which build COVID-19 prevention tech. There were four recipients in the total for the first round including the open-source vaccine development RADVAProject, and the upper Room UVGI Project which works on UV lamps that can kill viruses.