B612 Foundation Announces $2.3 Million in Leadership Gifts

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May 27, 2022, 09:00 ET

Donors investing in advancing Astrodynamics Platform to Discover Asteroids

SAN FRANCISCO, May 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The B612 Foundation announced today a new $1 million matching challenge grant from Tito's Handmade Vodka and separate $1.3 million in gifts to advance their efforts to build the Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) cloud-based astrodynamics platform. B612 Foundation, and its core program, the Asteroid Institute, is committed to expanding humanity's knowledge of our solar system, including the discovery of asteroids and their orbits.

"We are humbled and inspired by the generosity of our funding partners. Their support over the years and into the future, along with Tito's matching challenge, is helping us scale our technical team and expand our scientific, technical, and educational partnerships," said Danica Remy B612 Foundation, President and chief executive. "The Foundation has a three-year funding goal to raise a further $4 million to advance the Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) platform. These funds will enable ADAM to analyze historical data and future data coming from Vera Rubin Observatory and its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will enable new asteroids' discoveries and orbits."

"The work of the Asteroid Institute and the advancing development of the ADAM platform have been a validation of the support from us and many others who share our vision. We have been proud to invest in the future expansion of the Asteroid Institute science and technology team," said American technology executive, philanthropist, and former Broadcom CEO Scott McGregor.

In order to unlock Tito's Handmade Vodka matching challenge grant, B612 must raise another $1 million from donors. The Austin, Texas-based vodka company will match all donations made, up to $1 million, with a fundraising goal to receive those gifts before December 31, 2022. Tito's is encouraging others to get involved and help reach the campaign goal. These gifts will advance B612 and its Asteroid Institute. To learn more about how a vodka company gets involved with asteroid discovery, visit Titos CHEERS site for more information on Tito's CHEERS program and other emerging research and science they support.

"It's been an honor for us at Google Cloud to work with the Asteroid Institute and collaborate on future breakthroughs in astronomy with the Cloud," said Massimo Mascaro, Distinguished Technical Director, Applied AI, Google Cloud. "New computational techniques are changing the way we use data and gather insights, allowing us to build new scientific discovery tools and we're excited to see what this will enable in the future."

"Our family has been involved with B612 for more than a decade. We are inspired by the transformational power of adding massive computation to telescopic data, which is yielding the potential for exponentially greater asteroid discoveries," said philanthropist and business leader Laurie Girand. "This is just the beginning of filling out a map of our solar system."

Scott Manley, Internet Rocket Scientist, says "B612 has always been focused on the Earth's unseen neighbors in the solar system. The ADAM platform capabilities will show that in addition to processing the data stream from new telescopes, ADAM can harvest discoveries from existing images which can yield new results thanks to cutting edge computational astronomy techniques. ADAM shows how managing, manipulating and merging new and old imagery will help us understand the importance of asteroids to our future."

"B612 has led the way, educating world citizens to the dangers of asteroidal impacts, spurring national and international programs to appraise the threat and find solutions. Now, those mighty new survey instruments are gushing tsunamis of data about the solar system. With this work of the Asteroid Institute, they enter a new phase, developing clever ways to sift through it all, finding the glittering rocks out there that might present either danger or opportunity," said Dr. David Brin, scientist, speaker, technical consultant, and world-known author.

B612's Founding Circle and Asteroid Circle members, along with anonymous major donors and thousands of individual donors from 46 countries, provide financial support for the Asteroid Institute's astrodynamics as a service platform ADAM, which is used to discover asteroids and analyze their orbits. Google Cloud has enabled the ADAM platform's current development and future work with generous Cloud credits and technical support. Tito's Handmade Vodka has provided major funding including today's announcement of a $1 million matching grant challenge. A partnership with The Explorer's Club and Discovery's global platform helps fund and promote the research.

About B612 Foundation and Asteroid Institute

Asteroid Institute brings together scientists, researchers, and engineers to develop tools and technologies to understand, map, and navigate our solar system. A program of B612 Foundation, the Asteroid Institute leverages advances in computer science, instrumentation, and astronomy to find and track asteroids. Since 2002, the Foundation has supported research and technologies to enable the economic development of space and enhance our understanding of the evolution of our solar system in addition to supporting educational programs, including Asteroid Day. Founding Circle and Asteroid Circle members, and individual donors from 46 countries provide financial support for the work. For more information, visit B612foundation.org or follow on social: Twitter, Facebook, YouTub e and Instagram.