By Frank Ricotta

Like you, our team continues to reflect on how quickly the world has changed due to COVID-19.  Healthcare systems are overwhelmed; economies are in freefall; people are anxious.  When it comes to pandemics, there are no racial divides, no economic differentiators, only people.  

At BurstIQ, we believe this crisis is a defining moment to bring the world together and deepen our human connectedness.  We have witnessed the beginning of this as our public-private partnerships come together with unprecedented speed. We also applaud the calls for innovation and collaboration across the globe.  These initiatives require us to connect in order to create a profound impact, the broad-scale social impact we all desire.  

If ever there was a time when our world needs to be connected, it is now. COVID-19 has created an acute sense of urgency, speeding up demand for researchers, organizations, public health officials, and innovators to cooperate in real-time. 

Over the last few weeks, we have been quietly developing Research Foundry with the support of an international coalition of researchers, public health officials, organizations, and inventive minds.  All of whom believe that large-scale problems can only be solved collaboratively. 

Research Foundry is a free service supporting the global community responding to COVID-19 so we can unite, gain deeper public health insights, and expedite progress.  Research Foundry provides the infrastructure, tools, and the connected community to enable this collaboration with security, traceability, and compliance.  

As a starting point, we populated Research Foundry with a significant number of health data collections, including specific COVID-19 data sets.   Additionally, to ensure that Research Foundry maintains its independence, we established an independent governance committee to oversee the network.  

This is where you come in.  We need your help to build Research Foundry.  

• Contribute data:  If you have data you think can help, make it available to the research community.  
• Create a research collaborative:  If you are trying to solve a problem, either within your organization or together with others, post your challenge and engage the global community to solve it using the power of crowd intelligence.  
• Build a solution:  If you are an innovator, share your ideas and connect with those who can help you get it to a place where it will make a difference. 

If you would like to get involved, reach out to us at [email protected].  We would love to hear from you.

Together, we are the difference. 

Frank Ricotta, CEO