Uwingu Funds its First Project

Remember a few entries ago I told you about a cool crowd-sourcing project called Uwingu? It’s made up of a group of people who wanted to see good research being funded that hasn’t been getting funded in the current political climate.  Well, the appeal is going well and they have enough money to fund their first research project: Project SETI.  Here’s the announcement straight from Uwingu:

“Uwingu^TM, LLC and the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA) (which is designed to search out extraterrestrial life), announced that the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array’s science team will be the first project funded by Uwingu, via its IndieGoGo campaign. Uwingu will donate half of all “bonus” funds above its $75K business launch target to the ATA. 

“We don’t have to wait to begin helping space research until we launch our first product, we’re starting now!” said Uwingu CEO, Dr. Alan Stern. “And I can’t overstate how proud Uwingu is to have the SETI Institute’s ATA as a beneficiary of our IndieGoGo crowd-funding campaign. SETI is one of the noblest and most important space research enterprises. We hope this will be a double-win—generating more funds available to launch our own commercial products, and more funds available to the ATA’s research teams.”

Added the ATA’s Dr. Jill Tarter, “Even without the looming specter of federal budget ‘sequestration’, available governmental budgets for space science, space research, and programs encouraging STEM education are shrinking fast. Our ideas and opportunities are bigger and better than ever, but they are all competing for a smaller resource pool.  Alternative funding in the form of entrepreneurship is an absolute necessity if we are to continue exploring and solving grand challenges.  All of us can participate in the IndieGoGo campaign and the launch of Uwingu, and purchase its products to generate revenues to fund the best ideas from scientists today and into tomorrow. Make it so!””

 If you’re at all interested in furthering science research, and you have a few extra dollars to spend, please consider supporting Uwingu.  They’re good people!  I’ve known Alan Stern for a long time and just met Jill Tarter at the SETIcon II meeting in June. It’s really nice to see some support flowing SETI’s way.  And, it’s not just about little green men at SETI.  If you check out their Web pages, you’ll find that SETI Institute scientists are involved in a huge number of research topics spread from astrobiology to planetary sciences.