Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have donated $25 million through their foundation to a philanthropic effort organized by Bill Gates to explore new coronavirus treatments.
The Gates Foundation donated $50 million last week to what it’s calling the “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.” The initiative brings together life sciences companies to collaborate on the development of new vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for COVID-19.
“The Therapeutics Accelerator will enable researchers to quickly determine whether or not existing drugs have a potential benefit against COVID-19,” Chan and Zuckerberg said in a press release. “We hope these coordinated efforts will help stop the spread of COVID-19 as well as provide shared, reusable strategies to respond to future pandemics.”
The two donations are the largest from tech billionaires since the coronavirus outbreak. Wellcome and Mastercard are supporting the effort as well.
The goal of the initiative is to either develop a new drug or adapt an existing treatment that it could help distribute alongside partnering pharmaceutical companies.
The 15 companies participating in the project kicked off the effort by sharing their proprietary libraries of molecular compounds that have some history of being tested with COVID-19.
The lineup includes big names in biotech such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The internet's largest platform and distributor of GIFs helps brands carve out a relevant place in online conversations, says the Giphy COO Adam Leibsohn. The company's goal is to help brands such as Absolut Vodka and Dunkin' Donuts "entertain, not advertise," he says.
Without its own supplies of fossil fuels, it makes economic and environmental sense for Hawaii to develop its own renewable sources of energy, says Connie Lau, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric Industries and chairman of Hawaiian Electric Company. To do so, the state can use its natural advantages in solar and wind, she says.
Hawaii aims to be completely reliant on renewable sources of energy by 2045, says Connie Lau, president and CEO of Hawaiian Electric Industries and chairman of Hawaiian Electric Company. To do so, she said the state can use its natural advantages in solar and wind.
"The market is going to be looking at Tesla more and more as a car company," says The Motley Fool's Jason Moser. "And if that's the case, they better get some earnings in very quickly or you could see that stock get shellacked here in the near term."
The CEO of video app Cameo, Steve Galanis, said he created his platform because "selfies are the new autographs." For the right price, users can get a video shout-out from celebrities – actress Bella Thorne and NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens, to name a couple.
Facebook said Friday that it won’t partner with the crypto firm Stellar, despite a report that the two companies recently held talks. Just before the report, Facebook vice president of blockchain David Marcus stepped down from the board of Coinbase, citing a conflict of interest.
How Tesla CEO Elon Musk's plan to take the company private unfolds will depend on his financial backer ー or backers ー says Christian Prenzler, vice president of business development at Teslarati."Traditionally, Musk has had no problem selling these things to investors," Prenzler says.
Tesla's board of directors will reportedly hold a meeting next week with investors to discuss the possibility of taking the company private. The board may urge CEO Elon Musk to recuse himself from the talks.
Samsung showed off its new Galaxy Note 9 smartphone at its Samsung Unpacked event in New York Thursday. The Note 9 comes equipped with double the storage of any other smartphone on the market and a camera that automatically tells you if the picture is blurry.
And we're joined by actor Luke Evans, who is lending his voice to a new audio experience from Stella Artois. He talks about how he stays in the moment and cherishes his 'me time.'
Samsung's most powerful smartphone to date, the Galaxy Note 9, has a day-long battery life and a Bluetooth-enabled stylus that works like a remote control. Cheddar's Hope King demos the new phone and discusses its other features.
Crypto-bandits are imitating celebrities and CEOs on social media, trying to steal Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Vinny Lingham, co-founder and CEO of Civic, and Charlie Shrem, a founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, told Cheddar about their experiences with scammers.
