In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably familiar with the popular Ice Bucket Challenge that originated from 29 year old Peter Frates, a former captain of the Boston College baseball team who was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 (this according to a Facebook data science team).
Since its first appearance on various social media channels in early June, the unique approach to raising money for ALS (AKA Lou Gehrig’s Disease) by pouring a bucket of ice water over your head and/or donating money to the cause has raised over $2 million for research and has seen everybody from Apple’s Tim Cook to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg take part.
The challenge has gone viral in no small part due to its premise that for each person who does it, they have to challenge three other people to take part. You do the math, but this ice bucket-fundraising-telephone tree has provided more than one great way to stay cool this summer.
Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg took part in the challenge:
…and one of his three chosen ‘challengers’ was none other than everybody’s favorite nerd, Bill Gates.
Never one to shy away from a great time while raising awareness for a good cause, Bill went above and beyond the calling by designing and building (surely with the help of some robot worker elves in the background) the ultimate ice bucket contraption:
Well…Elon Musk, Ryan Seacrest and Chris Anderson of TED have 24 hours to meet Bill’s challenge.
Will Elon Musk develop a more impressive contraption that involves a spacecraft?
We’ll have to wait and see.
