In terms of technology, Power To Give is a clever adaptation of existing, academic, Personal Computer-based software called BOINC (Berkeley Open-Infrastructure for Network Computing). Power To Give is a mobile application bringing fluidity of donation to a sector that has previously had many barriers to giving.

Think of Power To Give as the “WhatsApp” of mobile charitable giving.

The software has been re-written, adapted, updated and branded as an HTC initiative, ultimately making it safer and simpler for volunteers to use. HTC are now funding the world’s biggest mobile volunteer computing programme.

When the phone is plugged in and on WiFi, with a full battery and running at the optimum temperature, users’ phones will automatically download small packages of scientific research, such as World Community Grid, SETI@home and SIMAP.

HTC’s objective is to have 1,000,000 users donating processing power. A project that would have taken hundreds of years to process, can take just a few hundreds days.

The plan is to have Power To Give pre-installed on all HTC devices, making it immediately available on millions of smartphones, and compatible with our competitors' products.

With over a billion smartphones in the market today, the potential in Power To Give is enormous, and can genuinely have a profound impact in scientific research all over the world.