Hadfield Builds Web Site To Fight Malaria

After selling a soccer Web site to ESPN for $40 million eight years ago, former Undergraduate Council presidential candidate Tom D. Hadfield ’08 has now set his sights on fighting malaria in Africa.

Following an eye-opening trip through Zambia last summer, Hadfield has launched MalariaEngage.org, which provides a global platform for people around the world to make donations to support research and other programs in Africa.

“Traveling through Africa made me realize that there’s more to life than putting up soccer scores on the internet,” Hadfield said. “Everyone there had either lost a child to malaria or knew someone who had. That made a tremendous impact on me.”

The Web site launched on World Malaria Day on April 25. Users have the ability to personally choose from seven different National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania programs that each aim to fight malaria.

While Hadfield did not specify an exact amount, he said that the Web site has had “many, many donations so far.”

Hadfield worked with University of Toronto professors Peter A. Singer and Abdallah S. Daar of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health to launch the project.

“Malaria is a humanitarian catastrophe,” Singer said. “One to two million people are killed every year. About one million of those are children under five in Africa.”

After visiting Tanzania, Hadfield said that he encountered the challenges that malaria researchers faced finding funding. But through MalariaEngage.org, the Tanzanian institute will distribute the donated funds to programs that range from improving the use of insecticide-treated nets to movements for strengthening collaboration between traditional healers and health workers.

“We felt [National Institute for Medical Research’s] work was important enough, both with what they’re doing now and in building up a new group of researchers for the future,” Daar said. “We wanted to provide a platform that they could communicate with their supporters through and stay in touch with other scientists internationally.”

The Web site’s creators said they hoped to expand the project in the future to include other research institutions.

“I’m fascinated by how we can use technology to address the major challenges facing the planet,” Hadfield said. “I think it would be really cool to find a way to use social networking tools to eradicate malaria.”

Singer also said that the Web site’s underlying philosophy relies on “the ethical value of solidarity.”

“People around the world share a sense of solidarity,” Singer said. “What’s missing is a channel to act on it, that’s what we think we’re providing.”

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