Malaria research funding website leaves limited legacy

Friday, March 28, 2014

A website intended to rewrite the rules of how malaria research is fundedfailed to exploit the early potential of social media to link the public with researchers — but its one achievement, a new mosquito repellent is due to hit Tanzania’s market early next year.

MalariaEngage, a website that profiled African malaria researchers and allowed people to directly send them small amounts of money, was an early example of crowdfunding.

“It is my dream that tens of thousands of people will use MalariaEngage to build a movement that will see through the challenges of eradicating malaria to the very end,” Tom Hadfield, co-founder of the site and a British entrepreneur studying at Harvard University in the United States, told SciDev.Net when MalariaEngage.org launched in 2008.

Source: SciDevNet (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Education, Health Care
Tags
crowdfunding, research