F@H and Penn State...planning stage.

Hi everyone,

I'm currently a sophomore at Penn State University. I'm thinking about making an effort to either: 1) start an organization for student Folding, and/or 2) talking to the IT department here to get school computers folding.

My question, does anyone here have experience with doing something on this scale with F@H? Perhaps someone that has implemented it at their university or at a large business firm? I'm just looking for some guidance on how to start approaching this. Obviously, the harder objective will be getting the University computers Folding, as I'm sure the IT Department will be highly concerned with heat, electricity, and bandwidth.

If anyone has any comments or any kind of information at all that could help me out, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

-Jon

You just have to make the argument that the cost of electricity and software management is outweighed by the benefits of having PSU folding.

I'd suggest making a pitch of what the goals of folding@home are, and then apply them to the PSU population. Aka, a% of PSU students will be diagnosed with x disease, b% with y disease, etc... and then give them a good PR hook such as: by dedicating our resources to FAH, we could help advance the science and find a cure that would save the above unfortunate souls. Maybe do a rough estimate of what it would cost the university and compare it to other charitable things they sponsor and see if you can make the case that it would be cost effective community service (and good university PR).

With colleges hurting in today's economy, it won't be an easy sell unless you make a good pitch that makes whoever has authority to make these decisions feel like a jerk for saying no. If you can show it is more cost effective than their other charitable programs, you're probably good to go.

Good luck!

Thanks Bomber, those are some great thoughts that I didn't even consider!