It was a public discussion was on Robert Wiblin feed. Given that they are actually searching for funding it feels like a good utilitarian idea to quote here (if someone thinks it shouldn’t be quoted just tell me):
Me: Is funding a problem holding RaDVaC back? If so, it might be worth making the case for EA funds going to RaDVaC on the EA-forum or seeking a grant from OpenPhil. I expect that it would be possible to raise high six figures or low seven figures for RaDVaC by seeking EA donations.
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Alex Hoekstra:
Christian Kleineidam funding is very much a bottleneck for us. We’ve been ~99% focused on the science for the last 15 months, to the detriment of much else.
I gratefully welcome any advice on getting some additional fuel in our organizational tank; we’re all volunteers so far and it’s become increasingly clear over time that building open-source vaccine developer kits is worthy of a full-time commitment. There’s so much more we need to do.
Somehow the draft I wanted to post as an answer encouraging writing an EA forum post never made left my Evernote draft and is still unpublished.
I don’t have the best overview over how to go about convincing EA donors to fund RaDVaC but I see the potential of RaDVaC has highly worthy of funding. If anybody reading this has the ability to connect the RaDVaC guys with funding I expect that to be very positive.
Following up: as a result of this thread, radvac will likely get a $100k donation (from a donor who was not considering them before). This does not fill their funding needs however, and they’re looking to raise another $300k this year.
For any interested funders, PM me and I can share detailed call notes.
It was a public discussion was on Robert Wiblin feed. Given that they are actually searching for funding it feels like a good utilitarian idea to quote here (if someone thinks it shouldn’t be quoted just tell me):
Somehow the draft I wanted to post as an answer encouraging writing an EA forum post never made left my Evernote draft and is still unpublished.
I don’t have the best overview over how to go about convincing EA donors to fund RaDVaC but I see the potential of RaDVaC has highly worthy of funding. If anybody reading this has the ability to connect the RaDVaC guys with funding I expect that to be very positive.
I have some good leads, will check in with them tomorrow.
(If I stop working on this/don’t make any progress I’ll post about that here, so as not to make this funding gap erroneously appear filled.)
Following up: as a result of this thread, radvac will likely get a $100k donation (from a donor who was not considering them before). This does not fill their funding needs however, and they’re looking to raise another $300k this year.
For any interested funders, PM me and I can share detailed call notes.
I’m very happy to hear this.