Open data, advances in Alzheimer's research, and world missions

The scientific community is realizing that the "open-source" concept is not just for software. It is the foundational concept of a new approach to developing a cure for Alzheimer's Disease. It started in 2003, when a collaborative effort to make advances in the treatment of the disease was undertaken by the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups.

"The key to the Alzheimer’s project was an agreement as ambitious as its goal: not just to raise money, not just to do research on a vast scale, but also to share all the data, making every single finding public immediately, available to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world.

No one would own the data. No one could submit patent applications..."1

What is notable is that:

• The "open" approach was unprecedented in the highly competitive pharmaceutical industry.
• The willingness to share all data openly was grounded in the realization of all the parties that they were not going to be able to solve this problem alone.
• The parties involved agreed that accomplishing the objective was worth more in and of itself than "doing it the way they had always done it" in hopes of profiting from it.

There are three main reasons why taking an open source approach is working for Alzheimer's disease research:

• Community - The problem is complex, and there were limited returns on investment for one company to take the risk alone.
• Openness - Sharing data without restrictions and choosing to give up patent applications leveled the playing field so that anyone could build on and improve the work of anyone else.
• Passion - The players involved were moving towards a goal, not a profit.2

What does this have to do with missions?

It's a nice story, but what does this have to do with world missions and the advance of the Gospel in every language group?

Everything.

World missions is still often characterized by a "silo mentality" where each organization focuses on its own niche, with its own resources, sometimes even in competition with other churches and mission organizations. With some notable exceptions, each group does its own thing without significant, meaningful input or sharing with other organizations. This yields some results in some contexts, but the magnitude of the remaining task and the slow pace of accomplishing it calls for a new approach to the task.

Imagine what would happen if the church and Christian organizations took the same approach as the scientists and researchers seeking a cure for Alzheimer's, and were willing to share their "data" (discipleship resources) without restrictions, in order to accomplish their goal of "making disciples of every nation" at any cost. There is an incredible need for discipleship resources and the reality is that, although no one intends for it to be that way, copyrights on discipleship resources can limit the advance of the global church (see here for one of many real-life examples).

This requires humility and being willing to allow others to benefit from the work we have done. As we move in this direction, we open the door to seeing advances that would not have been possible otherwise.

Photo credit: audrey_sel

• 1. Source: New York Times
• 2. This list based on an article by Jason Hibbets and released under CC-BY-SA.