In the past, the popular website, The Oatmeal, has been very vocal about its praise and support for Nikola Tesla, his ideas and his project. Tesla was one of the most hailed visionaries of his time, creating many cutting-edge, break-through inventions. Now, the website has taken up the campaign to help a non-profit organization procure funds to build a Tesla museum.
When Oatmeal penned down its earlier article titled ‘Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived’, it went viral on the web, shared and tweeted all around the world. In the article, it was revealed how a number of Tesla’s inventions were literally stolen by Thomas Edison who had more interest in patenting and commercially profiting from such inventions. Tesla, on the other hand, was a true visionary who kept inventing things without patenting them or caring for the money.
In this vein, this new project falls perfectly in line with that earlier article. This new article is titled ‘Help me raise funds to buy Nikola Tesla’s old laboratory.‘
The project is aimed at buying what used of Nikola Tesla’s actual laboratory. In Tesla’s days, it comprised of a huge tower and a number of other facilities. But with time, abandon and neglect led to its ruin and the tower was demolished. What’s left of it is the laboratory and the foundation. Recently, this piece of land went up for sale and a non-profit organization is trying to buy it to convert it into a Nikola Tesla Museum.
However, at the same time, another entity is trying to buy the land to turn it into a retail establishment. Naturally, it would be a shame to the great inventor’s memory if his former laboratory was used to sell, say, shoes or burgers. So Oatmeal has taken up a kind of PR campaign to draw the world’s attention to this and help procure funds for the non-profit organization to get the land.
The land currently costs $1.6 million and the non-profit has been able to secure a rather fine deal from New York State. According to this deal, if this organization is able to procure $850,000, it would be given the exact same sum by the State. This way, it will have a total of $1.7 million, enough to simply buy the land.
So all this non-profit organization needs right now is funds to the tune of $850,000. Oatmeal calls out to major organizations such as J.P. Morgan, General Electric, Google, Tesla Motors as well as individuals such as Christian Bale to generously donate for this cause. Also, the reason why this project was launched on Oatmeal and not on Kickstarter is because Kickstarter doesn’t host fundraising campaigns for non-profits.
Indeed if the sum of $850,000 could be raised through an internet campaign, every penny would be worth it. The legacy of Tesla needs to be safeguarded so that science and physics, without necessarily having to be commercial and profitable, is encouraged.
The donation page can be accessed right here.
[ttjad]
Source: The Oatmeal
