With the world battling the current Covid-19 outbreak, a new project at MIT seeks to develop innovative solutions to fight this and future pandemics.

The Pandemic Response CoLab is a joint project by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), MIT Media Lab’s Community Biotechnology Initiative, and founding member MilliporeSigma, the life science business of Merck KGaA in Darmstadt, Germany. The Pandemic Response CoLab is an open, online collaboration platform that invites anyone, from individuals to groups, from communities to businesses, to develop actionable solutions for challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“A global challenge like the pandemic necessitates global solutions,” says David Kong, director of the MIT Media Lab’s Community Biotechnology Initiative and co-founder of the CoLab platform. “We are excited to utilize the Pandemic Response CoLab to channel the creativity and innovation of diverse communities all around the world toward addressing the myriad challenges we face arising from the pandemic.”