In our last crowdsourcing and crowdfunding platform roundup, we highlighted Boost Funder, Scolaris, and Seedrs, as well as a new open innovation initiative by Innocentive and a non-profit that aims to teach programming to a new generation of coders. This week, we bring your attention to a few more platforms and projects that piqued our interest.

Comics Accelerator

Seeing the success of comic book crowdfunding campaigns, Michael Murphey decided to create Comics Accelerator, a crowdfunding platform dedicated specifically to graphic novels. Given the cult followings around comics and artists, a niche platform that can tap into the strong community makes sense. Murphey is also the CEO of digital comics distribution company iVerse Media. This connection can help draw artists to the platform by allowing them to take advantage of iVerse Media's distribution network and capabilities. Comics Accelerator is currently in its beta phase, open for submission and review of projects.

iAMscientist

iAMscientist, a crowdfunding platform for scientific, technological, and medicinal projects, launched earlier today. While platforms like Medstartr and FundaGeek already operate in this space, iAMscientist is unique in its emphasis on the researcher community: the platform features a database that contains several thousand scientists’ profiles. These include information about each individual’s position, affiliation, and location, as well as any papers, books, grants, or patents the scientist had worked on. The hope is that with more activity, the platform can become a vibrant community for developing and funding research ideas.

Netflix, Subtitles, and Crowdsourcing

Netflix has announced that it will turn to crowdsourcing in order to close caption its streaming content. The company was sued last year by the National Association of the Deaf for failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act by not offering subtitles for many of its instant watch movies and TV shows. Netflix has turned to Amara – a crowdsourced subtitle and translation platform – to help with the project. The video rental and streaming company has used crowdsourcing in the past, famously hosting an open competition to improve its user rating prediction algorithm.

Noodlecrumbs

Noodlecrumbs is a crowdfunding platform for ideas, rather than specific products or projects. It works like this: a person submits an idea that they know they cannot (or do not want to) execute. If others like the concept, they can fund it and offer advice. Once a reasonable sum is raised, other individuals submit proposals on how to bring the idea to fruition. Funders then vote on the most promising proposal, which gets the money. While certainly a novel concept, it remains to be seen whether people with truly great ideas will want to open them up for anyone to see.

Joinmyproject

Joinmyproject, a platform that launched earlier in the year, recently announced that it became the first platform in Spain (and “other countries”) to offer flexible funding in addition to the all-or-nothing plan. Flexible funding does not require campaign organizers to meet their goal -- they can take whatever money they raise. The platform is currently hosting two campaigns out of Spain, and it hopes to expand worldwide quickly.

MIT’s Digital Shingle Project

It’s no secret that MIT has had a number of prominent alumni create popular companies – from Harmonix to Dropbox. Recently, the university decided to leverage this success through the Digital Shingle Project, a crowdsourced database of MIT alumni-founded enterprises. Alumni are encouraged to fill in their companies’ profiles, including location and contact information, creating an easy way to connect with other entrepreneurs. For current students, the database can become an excellent place to find potential employment or internship opportunities. Let’s see if more colleges and universities decide to create similar platforms in the future.