It is once again my pleasure to be bringing to you all The Summer Folding Sprint!

As is customary I will be writing a daily blog so everyone can follow along, there will be prizes, fun, science and heat!

Last folding sprint we aimed to reach rank 10, we missed that goal, but now, we stand tall and proud, sitting 3rd on the leaderboard of the world. 

First I would like to thank everyone once again for taking part in the Emergency Folding Event, our own small action against the ongoing global pandemic that is ravaging the world. I would be doing you all a disservice if I were not to mention the fact that the fight against COVID is still ongoing. The world is still suffering, people are still dying. 

According to the World-O-Meter at the time of writing there have been 6.5 million confirmed cases of COVID19, leading to almost 400,000 deaths. This is the reality many of us still face, socially distanced, in lockdown, unable to see our loved ones, parents, children, grandparents, partners, friends. It is easy to feel more alone than ever during these trying times, it is easy to forget that we live in the most connected society ever seen. We have all found it hard in our own way. 

Well right now, we once again have a chance to come together, to unite, with the power of our combined compute, to tackle this crisis. We can choose to do take the fight to this invisible enemy, to support the medical field in a way that was simply not possible the last time this planet was facing a health crisis of this magnitude. I am proud of everything that this team has accomplished since I took over, and the seeds of that accomplishment were planted long before I took over. When we started running events in 2017. 

We all have the power to make this change, to work towards this common good, even the most modest of set ups can add to our collective ability to crunch numbers in a way that has never been seen before. We are offering more compute capacity through the folding network than any single system has ever offered researchers. In the entirety of human history, there has never seen anything close to what we mere gamers have offered over the last few weeks and months.

The details of the event are to be published later today, including participation requirements and prizes. The event will run from 13th of June, to the 19th of June. Leading up to the summer solstice on the 20th, the longest day of the year.

This event will not be eligible for folding event badges, that is reserved for LMG endorsed folding months only. Don't forget to follow this blog to keep up to date with any needed info, the event thread will be added onto the blog entry this evening(18:00-22:00BST/GMT+1)

The event thread has now gone live!

But, most importantly, lets have fun, test our metal with the heat and finally, let's kick some COVID ass!

Happy Folding,

Spec.