A Dash of Salt by Chuck Salter

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I'm a PC...and I Fund Crazy Ideas that Might Save Millions of Lives

Now there's a line that would fit nicely in Microsoft's unusually moving new ad campaign. This week the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it had spent $10 million on 104 global-health research projects considered too risky for traditional funding. It hopes that placing relatively smaller bets will lead to a major medical innovation.

When Bill Gates started a global-health foundation in 1994, he was deeply troubled by an obvious math problem: the diseases that killed the most people received the least funding for research. It wasn't even close. About 10 percent of the money went to preventing the diseases responsible for 90 percent of disease-related deaths. Why? Economics and geography. Malaria is a threat for as much as one-third of the planet's population -- more than 2 billion people - but they live in the Third World. For drug companies, there's more money in Viagra and Lipitor.

When I wrote about the Gates Foundation a while back, I came away with a much greater appreciation for the challenge of using Gates' fortune to solve global problems. Having the world's richest endowment, more than $35 billion, isn't enough. The foundation has to give grants wisely, accelerating the ideas that will have the biggest impact.

Its Grand Challenges Explorations project sought out the most promising but risky research from around the world. More than 4,000 proposals arrived over the Internet, and all identifying information was removed, to give each applicant an equal shot.

The grant recipients are trying all sorts of approaches. Confusing mosquitos with light waves. Creating a protein to attack HIV-infected cells. Even using mosquitoes to deliver malaria vaccines. "We now have a year to try to show that this crazy idea just might work," one microbiologist tells The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

This latest round of funding shows what's needed for true breakthroughs -- scientific as well as financial creativity.

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On the Road with Fast Company: It's Raining Creativity in Seattle

I’ve seen plenty of whiteboard-crazed companies over the years.  Tech conference rooms made entirely of whiteboards. Designers' offices with floor-to-ceiling whiteboards (to encourage ideas from every height, I suppose). At the Googleplex, I marveled at a huge idea wall out in the open, near the lobby, where Googlers riff.

While reporting in Seattle last week, I encountered my first whiteboard elevator. Three walls and plenty of markers. I doubt the company expects anyone to dash off an algorithm between floors, but this being a terrifically caffeinated city, you never know.

Instead, the result is office graffiti, an anonymous company-wide conversation. One person writes, “I’m Joe the plumber, and I’m an elite liberal.” Someone else responds, “I am Joe’s plumber.”

Sure, it can become a goofy forum, but it also serves as a creative outlet for employees and provides an interesting view into what people are thinking about in the organization. Got a burning question you want to ask colleagues anonymously as opposed to a company-wide email? A suggestion? A complaint? This is the place.

The subtle message of the whiteboard elevator is this: Express yourselves more, share an idea or two, have a little fun at the office. And in the process, maybe eliminate those awkward elevator silences. Scribbles, after all, get people talking.

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Meet the Doctor Who Plays Both Sides in the AL Championship Series

No matter what happens in the American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Rays, Dr. James Andrews will be on the winning side - and the losing side. That's the upside/downside of having a hand in both teams' success this year.

Andrews, the Alabama orthopedist we recently dubbed “the most valuable player in sports,” is the Rays' medical director. He examines injured players, performs surgery, and advises on their rehabilitation.

But Andrews being Andrews, he also treats Boston's players. When Sox ace Josh Beckett had elbow problems last month, he turned to the elite sports surgeon. Actually, Boston's entire pitching staff follows a conditioning regimen developed at Andrews' clinic in Birmingham. Mike Reinold, the team's rehabilitation coordinator, worked alongside Andrews and physical therapist guru Kevin Wilk for eight years before joining the Sox.  

The program, which Boston declined to describe to me in much detail, includes daily strength and flexibility tests. The results help predict where a player is likely to be injured, so he knows where to focus his conditioning. Considering how much money teams lose when players go on the disabled list, an injury prevention program like Boston's could be the game's next Moneyball innovation.

As for the Boston-Tampa series, Andrew told me he doesn't pick sides when he has patients on opposing teams. He roots for an injury-free game.

06:15 pm | 4 recommendations | 1 comment

Now It's Your Turn to Rank the Most Innovative Companies

In the March issue of Fast Company--careful, it's hot off the press--we unveil the new and improved Fast 50, aka the Fast Company 50. This year's list is our first-ever ranking of the most innovative companies in the world. But wait, you say, that's impossible. Can't be done. The world's too big! There's too much innovation out there to keep track of! Sloooow down, Fast Company!

Well, that's what you pay us for. To take journalistic chances. To venture where others fear to tread. Besides, the ranking felt like a natural for us given that we write about, talk about, and obsess about innovation all day. It's in our blood, people. We've been chronicling innovators large and small from the beginning, back when the Internet really was "a series of tubes," as Senator Stevens so eloquently put.

Take a gander at our list and let us know what you think. Who'd we leave off who belonged on there? And who should we have left off? Who did we rank too high? Too low? Here's where you can make your case. Let's hear it.