with leaders in the fields of veterinary medicine, human medicine, bioinformatics, epidemiology, and intellectual property. This cross-disciplinary effort provides new means to communicate and share information, as each discipline has distinct interests but also shares similar goals. The Initiative came together in a way that gives credit to those submitting data and makes substantial efforts to work with and include them in collaborative analyses on viral sequence data, "further tipping the scales in favor of collaboration". The notion of sharing not just data, but also the benefits of resulting research, represented a "paradigm shift" that puts contributors from higher and lower resource environments on more equal footing. History The GISAID Initiative was initially funded by Peter Bogner—a strategic advisor and international broadcasting executive—who serves as its founder and principal facilitator. Bogner has been directing the build-up of this platform by bringing together the world's leading scientists and stakeholders who are actively committed to accelerating understanding of this potential human pandemic by rapidly sharing scientific data and results. In January 2006, Bogner met with US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and was told about the US government's preparedness concept on dealing with the potential of a flu pandemic. Concerns about a pandemic scenario heightened. In November 2006, the Initiative received the endorsement of both The Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences. In February 2007, it was announced that GISAID and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) had signed a cooperation agreement. Under this agreement, the Geneva-based institute was to provide services for the secure storage and analysis of genetic, epidemiological, and clinical data. In January 2007, Indonesia stopped sharing all H5N1 clinical samples with WHO. In March 2007, Siti Fadilah Supari, Indonesia's Minister of Health, announced the Indonesian government supports the formation of the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Database (GISAID) following a high-level WHO meeting in Jakarta on Responsible Practices for Sharing Avian Influenza Viruses. In April 2007, the Indonesian Academy of Sciences reaffirmed its endorsement of GISAID, stating it shares the same ideals regarding free exchange and responsible sharing of information of avian influenza and emerging infectious diseases. In 2008, GISAID was adopted by “WHO Collaborating Centers for Influenza” for entering sequence data from samples received from National Influenza Centers (NICs) in the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System. After a legal clash with the SIB, in