• Vitalik Buterin gave USDC$4M, or $5.3M, to Kirby (NYSE.) Insitute UNSW Sydney.
• He is thought to have donated the most well-known cryptocurrency to an Australian institution of higher education.
• It was donated to aid the creation of EPIWATCH, a tool for pandemic detection.

Vitalik Buterin (co-founder of) gifted the Kirby Institute, University of South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, to build a tool for warning of pandemics in the future.

The largest cryptocurrency donation ever made to a higher education institution by #Ethereum founder @VitalikButerin has been to Kirby Institute. This was to help Prof Raina McIntyre’s open-source pandemic early warning signal tool. https://t.co/aYYhI10HiJ pic.twitter.com/rbBWWQCdan

— Kirby Institute, UNSW (@KirbyInstitute) May 13, 2022

The founder of the world’s second biggest cryptocurrency gave USDC$4M (stablecoin), which approximately converts to $5.3 million. This is the most well-known cryptocurrency that has been given to an Australian higher education institution.

The donation was received to support EPIWATCH, an open-source intelligence (OSINT) tool developed by UNSW Kirby Institute’s Professor Raina MacIntyre.

EPIWATCH was developed in 2016, after extensive testing and research. This tool scans millions of public data online, including news reports and social media, in order to detect epidemics much faster than traditional reporting by doctors and national labs.

Buterin stated:

We can develop treatments and stop epidemics faster if we detect them early enough.

According to Professor MacIntyre, the gift will allow the team at UNSW’s Kirby Institute to make EPIWATCH accessible to low-and middle-income countries. “Imagine if someone had detected COVID-19 before it spread around the world – that is our vision,” she said. “Using AI and real-time open-source data, EPIWATCH does not depend on people making reports. It is a great equalizer and can overcome weak health systems and censorship.”

It is essential that the tool be available in local languages, and be widely adopted at grassroots levels down to small towns and villages around the world. It will increase the chances of stopping pandemics.

Attila Bungs, UNSW Sydney’s vice-chancellor and President, thanked the Balvi fund for their gift. “We have seen the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world in the past two years. By making EPIWATCH accessible in lower income countries, the OSINT Initiative has the potential to avert future world crises like pandemics,” he added.

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