Navigraph has started a new pro bono venture to help speed up the search for a vaccine against the coronavirus (COVID-19). The new project, Simmers Without Borders, is open to anyone in the flight simulation community who are keen to do something to help find a vaccine for the coronavirus. As you know, COVID-19 is a global pandemic that requires immediate attention.
According to the press release from Navigraph, Simmers Without Borders is an easy way for anyone in the community to do their bit to help scientists find a vaccine for COVID-19. By using an established research project called “folding@home” you able to provide your own computing power to help find solutions to help speed up the process of finding vaccinations. Folder@home is ran by the Bowman Lab in St. Louis School of Medicine at Washington University.
“If there is something flight simulation enthusiasts have in abundance it’s computing power.” says Magnus Axholt, co-founder of Navigraph. Of course to run our simulators, we need a huge amount of computing power. “As much as we would like, we can’t always be up in the air. When we are not flying, we can set our powerful computers to do work for research.” Magnus continues.
To help track your progress and also to see the results as a community, users who wish to donate should use the Team ID 245628 when running the client software. All the work your computer does will count towards this Team ID and you will be able to follow the progress not only of your computer, but also that of other computers in the flightsim community, and that of other communities in the research project as a whole. Leaderboards are available on SimmersWithoutBorders.org as well as on foldingathome.org.
“Let’s show the world what the flight simulation community can do!” finishes Magnus in a video that was recently put online which also contains more information on what protein folding really is.
To start donating your computing power to speed up the search for a coronavirus vaccine – go to simmerswithoutborders.org.
