News reporter seeking personal stories

[iododds]

Greetings everyone. I'm Io Dodds, and I'm a tech reporter for the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm writing an in-depth feature about Folding@Home's wild 18 months fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, and, having interviewed some of the scientists in charge of the project, I'd now like to speak with the people "at home".

I am seeking interviews with pretty much anyone and everyone who has donated their computing power since the start of the pandemic. I'm hoping to get people all over the world, in a variety of different demographics and circumstances. I'm particularly interested in your personal stories: how you weathered this crisis, what you've been through, and your reasons for donating to F@H.

If you're up for it, please respond here, send me a private message, or email me at io DOT dodds AT telegraph DOT co DOT uk. We can then conduct an interview by telephone, video chat, email or instant messaging service. If you would like to check that I'm for real, feel free to email that address or DM me on Twitter @iododds. (I am unable to include URLs until I post more on this forum, so you'll have to locate me there yourself!)

Thank you so much for reading, and my best wishes to you all,
Io

[debs3759]

You have an email from me

[debs3759]

Got an email reply saying you are on leave until the end of October. If it helps you find my email, it has the same topic line as this thread

[Joe_H]

I will comment that Anton Thynell who is handling communications for F@h has confirmed that they are working with the Telegraph on this story.

[iododds]

Thank you Joe! And Debs, I have seen and responded - very much obliged.

Folks who email my Telegraph address will get an out of office response, but you needn't worry about it: I'm on leave from my day to day news reporting duties (which involve a lot of scrambling to travel at short notice), while continuing to work on long term projects including this story.

[iododds]

Hello all! Quick update from me: I've had great conversations with a number of you and am now writing my first draft.

I am still seeking interviews, especially with F@H donors under the age of 45, since most of my interviews so far have been with older donors. Ideally these would be wrapped up by the end of this week (Sun Sep 12), but it would also be possible to do them next week (Sep 13-18).

[debs3759]

When the article is posted, will it be visible to us all, or will it be behind a paywall?

[iododds]

When the article is posted, will it be visible to us all, or will it be behind a paywall?

I'm not sure yet, but I'll make sure to PDF copy to everyone who spoke to me for it at least.

[debs3759]

Great, thanks

[iododds]

Hello all! I'm pleased to say this article is finished and moving towards publication.

One thing we still need help with is: pictures! We are hoping to illustrate this with a mosaic of selfies from many people who've contributed to F@H, so that it looks like a giant Zoom meeting. It speaks perfectly to the central theme, but we need a lot of pics to make it work.

If anyone would like to help, please message me or email me with a picture taken from your webcam phone camera, and any brief biographical information you are comfortable sharing, before the end of Friday Oct 8 (PDT).

[Demmers]

The article got published on Saturday 6/11! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... deadliest/ (unfortunately behind a paywall, but I was lucky enough to buy the actual newspaper!).
I myself contributed to the article, i'm in the collage of photos, and who's name is Chris.
This is a great thing we're doing people, lets not lose sight of the big picture. "An individual computer is like a snowflake in a blizzard. One or two snowflakes aren’t going to really change anything, but enough snowflakes can take down a city." - Vijay Pande (founder).

[iododds]

Cheers Chris - really appreciate it. It's amazing to see the article finally out.

This is just a note to say that since the whole community helped out with this, I am happy to provide a PDF of the article on request, as long as it is not circulated publicly. You can DM me or email me at [email protected].

[tomc001]

The article got published on Saturday 6/11! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... deadliest/ (unfortunately behind a paywall, but I was lucky enough to buy the actual newspaper!).

I just tried the link and it wasn't protected by a pay wall. So that may have been changed.