Georgia Tech looks to crowdfund university research – Atlanta Business Chronicle

Georgia Tech has launched its version of Kickstarter.

The Atlanta-based engineering school has launched Georgia Tech Starter — a university-based, peer-reviewed crowd-funding platform for science and engineering research projects.

The site, open to faculty researchers and students, is aimed at raising seed funding (typically amounts up to $5,000) or helping to gather data for a larger project.

With state-funding under pressure, turning to the public to financially back promising research is a smart approach.

Georgia Tech Starter is different from other crowd-funding websites in that it will use a review process to ensure projects can be successfully executed, before they get posted, noted Allison Mercer, a Georgia Tech researcher who launched the site.

Projects will be posted on the site for 60 days, and donors will only be charged if the funding goals are reached. So far, seven projects are under review, including a project to wire urban bees and their hives with tiny cameras and RFID tags, to study climate change.

via Georgia Tech looks to crowdfund university research – Atlanta Business Chronicle.