(...or baklava, falafels, empanadas, whatever!)
As you may know, especially if you are already part of our "Catchers" community, StallCatchers from EyesOnALZ is an online puzzle-game – similar to Foldit, EyeWire, EteRNA, etc. – designed to speed up research related to Alzheimer’s disease. In its startup phase it’s been proven to deliver data as valid as that from lab scientists, and – using crowdsourcing – to do one year’s worth of high quality analysis in one short month!
We are about to get serious about going GLOBAL, and we think Pizza is the answer. Would you like to organize a local Stall Catchers pizza party? If so, keep reading (or sign up HERE right now!) ...
What: Join the first ever “International Catchathon" – organize a local meetup to play an online game that helps speed up Alzheimer's research!
When: July 22, 2017 at 16:00 UTC (use this link to find your local time)
Why: Accelerate Alzheimer's treatment research
How: The game is super easy to play (but tough to master). No specific scientific knowledge or skills are needed – just bring a smart phone, tablet (my favorite!), or laptop.
Where: You choose the location of your meetup, and then invite friends, family, neighbors – the more the merrier!
Eglė, our resident blog master, had this crazy idea to conduct a global "Catchathon" – a bunch of synchronized local meetups around the world where people gather to have pizza (or whatever) and play our online StallCatchers game, which accelerates Alzheimer's disease research. And since we LOVE crazy ideas – that's just what we intend to do.
Because I hate to be out-crazied, I decided we need at least 20 countries to participate (multiple teams in each country is ok!). Keeping in mind that this is going to be a synchronized event, please check this time zone calendar to find out when the event would take place in your locale.
Geoff Haines-Stiles, one of the original producers of Carl Sagan’s original Cosmos, the most-watched science documentary series of all time, will be hosting the Catchathon live (via Zoom and Facebook Live) with video links to all the meet-ups around the world. Working with the EyesOnALZ team, he’ll be tracking team progress and reporting results live. At the end of the 2-hour event we will announce the top three teams (gold, silver, and bronze – just like the Olympics). And if you'd like to see the 4-part TV series that brought the team together, please check out crowdandcloud.org, if you haven't yet. Stall Catchers (part of the EyesOnALZ project) is featured in this segment.
To make this work, we NEED YOUR HELP. We need a volunteer in each locale (there can be more than one meetup in the same country!) to organize the meetup. If you’ve experience with OpenStreetMap’s “Mapathons” so much the better.
We will give you everything you need – basic instructions on how to create your online team (you can even create a cool team logo that will show up on your team page!), a meetup checklist, quick instructions to share with your players, and a pizza (or doughnut – depending on your time zone) budget to feed yourself and the catchers!
The first step is to SIGN UP HERE!
Don't wait! We will be collecting our list of teams over the next week or two and sending out more information to help you prepare.
Come help us make history as we compete as countries but band together as a species to defeat this horrible disease that knows no geographic boundaries.
Exuberantly,
Pietro Michelucci
Founder, EyesOnALZ