Charity Engine

{{Short description|BOINC Account Manager for volunteer computing projects}}

{{Infobox company

| name = Charity Engine

| logo = Charity Engine logo.png

| vector_logo =

| type = Ltd.

| genre =

| founder = Mark McAndrew

| location_city = Manchester

| location_country = United Kingdom

| location =

| key_people = Mark McAndrew, Matt Blumberg, Mark Roberts, Stephen Wolfram (advisor)

| area_served =

| industry = Volunteer computing

| products = Charity Engine PC app

| revenue =

| operating_income =

| net_income =

| num_employees =

| parent =

| subsid =

| owner = The Worldwide Computer Company Limited

| homepage = https://www.charityengine.com/

| dissolved =

| footnotes =

}}

Charity Engine is a free PC app based on Berkeley University's BOINC software, run by The Worldwide Computer Company Limited. The project works by selling spare home computing power to universities and corporations, then sharing the profits between eight partner charities and periodic cash prize draws for the users;{{Cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/spare-some-idle-cpu-cycles-for-charity-this-season/|title=Spare Some Idle CPU Cycles For Charity This Season|website=TechCrunch|date=23 December 2011 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-22}} those running the Charity Engine BOINC software on their home computers. When there are no corporations purchasing the computing power, Charity Engine donates it to existing volunteer computing projects such as Rosetta@home, Einstein@Home, and Malaria Control, and prize draws are funded by donations.{{cite web|url=https://www.charityengine.com/about/how-it-works|title=How It Works|publisher=Charity Engine|accessdate=2013-04-05}}

The company was founded by former journalist Mark McAndrew,{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17995888|title=Idle home PCs could raise cash for Charity Engine|last=Ward|first=Mark|date=2012-05-10|work=BBC News|access-date=2019-09-22|language=en-GB}} who was writing a science fiction novel featuring a similar organisation. He abandoned the book in favour of creating the idea in real life, with the assistance of professor David Anderson from UC Berkeley who created BOINC.{{Cite web|url=https://www.fastcompany.com/2679116/charity-engine-the-ethical-supercomputer-that-can-win-you-10000|title=Charity Engine: The Ethical Supercomputer That Can Win You $10,000|last=Schwartz|first=Ariel|date=2012-01-10|website=Fast Company|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-22}} The company was incorporated in 2008, but did not start trading until 2011.{{Cite web|url=https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/06723910/filing-history|title=THE WORLDWIDE COMPUTER COMPANY LIMITED - Filing history (free information from Companies House)|website=beta.companieshouse.gov.uk|language=en|access-date=2019-09-22}}

The company received €70,000 of EU innovation funding through the Framework Programme 7 (FP7).{{Cite web|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/charity-engine-power-of-home-pcs-harnessed-as-one-supercomputer|title=Charity Engine: power of home PCs harnessed as one supercomputer|date=3 October 2016|website=GOV.UK|publisher=Innovate UK|language=en|access-date=2019-09-22}}

Protein folding

In August 2014 the Rosetta@home project reported Charity Engine had contributed over 125,000 new PCs to its grid.{{cite web|url=https://www.ipd.uw.edu/news-pages/the-power-of-charity-for-protein-design/|title=The Power of Charity For Protein Design|publisher=University of Washington|accessdate=2014-08-15}}

In January 2017, Charity Engine was credited as a significant contributor to solving protein-folding problems in the paper "Protein structure determination using metagenome sequence data" published by the journal Science.{{Cite web|url=https://www.geekwire.com/2017/big-data-rosetta-protein-puzzles/|title=Big data (and volunteers) help scientists solve hundreds of protein puzzles|date=2017-01-19|website=GeekWire|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-22}}

Sums of three cubes problem

In September 2019 a team led by Andrew Booker at the University of Bristol and Andrew Sutherland at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used Charity Engine to solve the sums of three cubes problem for the number 42,{{Cite news|url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190906134011.htm|title=Sum of three cubes for 42 finally solved -- using real life planetary computer|date=6 September 2019|work=Science Daily|access-date=22 September 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/2216941-mathematicians-find-a-completely-new-way-to-write-the-number-3/|title=Mathematicians find a completely new way to write the number 3|last=Lu|first=Donna|website=New Scientist|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-22}} as well as finding solutions for four other numbers in the same problem. The numbers found by Charity Engine are:

: $3=569\ 936\ 821\ 221\ 962\ 380\ 720^3 + (-569\ 936\ 821\ 113\ 563\ 493\ 509)^3 + (-472\ 715\ 493\ 453\ 327\ 032)^3,$

: $42=(-80\ 538\ 738\ 812\ 075\ 974)^3 + 80\ 435\ 758\ 145\ 817\ 515^3 + 12\ 602\ 123\ 297\ 335\ 631^3,$

: $165=(-385\ 495\ 523\ 231\ 271\ 884)^3 + 383\ 344\ 975\ 542\ 639\ 445^3 + 98\ 422\ 560\ 467\ 622\ 814^3,$

: $579=143\ 075\ 750\ 505\ 019\ 222\ 645^3 + (-143\ 070\ 303\ 858\ 622\ 169\ 975)^3 + (-6\ 941\ 531\ 883\ 806\ 363\ 291)^3,$

: $906=(-74\ 924\ 259\ 395\ 610\ 397)^3 + 72\ 054\ 089\ 679\ 353\ 378^3 + 35\ 961\ 979\ 615\ 356\ 503^3.$ {{cite journal |title=On a question of Mordell |year=2021 |doi=10.1073/pnas.2022377118 |arxiv=2007.01209 |last1=Booker |first1=Andrew R. |last2=Sutherland |first2=Andrew V. |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=118 |issue=11 |pmid=33692126 |pmc=7980389 |bibcode=2021PNAS..11822377B |s2cid=220302326 }}

References

External links

[https://www.charityengine.com/ Charity Engine Website]

Category:Volunteer computing

Category:Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing projects