World Community Grid

This great site lets you donate your computer’s processing power to be used for good.

When I signed up there were six active projects – five related to health issues directly and one for clean energy. I decided I wanted to participate in all six but you can choose the ones you are interested in on the website.

You begin by signing up for an account on the website and downloading some software. After downloading, you will want to configure it so that it runs when you want and works on tasks related to projects you care about.

The first thing I noticed was that one of the projects was World Community Grid which actually covers all of the project you select on the website. The software also allows you to assign other projects which are not part of World Community Grid but I did not look into any of them.

Then I set the runtime settings so that this program runs as my screen saver. Anytime my Mac goes into screensaver mode, it will request tasks and begin working on them. It’s a nice thing to be able to give in this small way.

You should check it out. If you find other projects online worth checking out, let me know.