It was in the year 2008, that a geek Dr. Ijad Madisch discovered that collaborating with scientists sitting in other side of world is a daunting task. With the aim of making of ‘research visible’, Dr. Madisch, along with 2 more scientists started Research Gate.
This initiative has received a fresh lease of life in the form of funding from Bill Gates. He is a part of group that includes Tenaya Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and Thrive Capital among others, who have raised $35 million in Series C financing with a mission to make scientific research more transparent.
On getting funding from Bill Gates, Madisch said that Bill Gates foundation has invested a lot money in global health initiatives, thereby our mission is aligned.
ResearchGate is the platform to share positive research findings with other members. “It’s the type of mindset that open source programmers use, but is still nascent in other fields of science. We want to be the leader in open science–like open source,” he added. It is a social network for scientists, where they can post information about their work and findings via their profile page.
This site has been often used by scientists to form alliance with others for research, which is not as easy as it sound, Ijad Madisch, co-founder and CEO of ResearchGate was quoted saying.
The site has close to 2.9 million members and the project has been highly successful. He now wants to take ResearchGate to a new level, which is why the funding part is crucial and he is delighted to have Bill Gates on-board.
