Before Getting Drenched In The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Read This !

While accessing your social media accounts if you are clobbered by discordant wet and chilly waves then it’s time for you to get into some icy action and don’t be startled if you find your competitors as the top guns of infobahn as the ALS ice bucket challenge has deluged each and everyone on this terrene including Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Phil schiller and even Bill Gates. The global celebrities are also not desiccated from this brumal Adam’s Ale challenge as Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon and Martha Stewart all poured a bucket of ice-water over their heads and fostered others for the same in 24 hours to bequest some wealth for fighting of ALS.

Generally, a person could take part in the contents only if he is challenged by a person who recently accepted the challenge. However, in many countries, especially in Brazil and India, people have started staging the show by ‘asking’ fellows to challenge himself.

The “roots” and “rules” of The Ice bucket challenge

This crusade was initiated in Massachusetts when Pete Frates- a former Boston College baseball player was diagnosed in 2012 with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) also known as the Lou Gehrig’s disease and he drained icy cold water on his head daring others to do the same. They had 24 hours to retort back and failing to do so would land them up in donating the bet amount to the ALS Association. In the challenge the participants’ have to donate $10 if they pour the water on their head else donate $100 in lieu of not completing the task.

In the summers of 2014, at the Northern Hemisphere, this Ice Bucket challenge went viral on the social media, especially in the US with plentiful of clans from all strata of society posting videos of themselves online and participating in this event on the television.

Using the pulpit of social media effectively and the incredible monetary collection

On 15^th of August, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) revealed that 15 million people on this social network giant posted commented or liked a post akin to this goofy act including a whooping number of 1.2 million video posts.

Prior to the recognition and popularity of this Ice Bucket campaign the grade of awareness and the telethon for ALS was extremely low, but after gaining such immense acclamation on the social media both the apprehensions and benefactions for the same surged to new heights. On 18 August, 2014, The ALS Association announced that the total collection received during the span of July 29 to August 18 was $15.6 million as compared to $1.8 million which it had accumulated in the same tenure of the previous year. These aids were provided both by the existent backers as well by the 70,000 newly appended ones whom the Association gratified in the most convivial ways.

“We have never seen anything like this in the history of the disease.We couldn’t be more thrilled with the level of compassion, generosity and sense of humor that people are exhibiting as they take part in this impactful viral initiative.” quoted Barbara Newhouse, President and CEO of The ALS Association.

The odds involved with ALS

At the present moment, the US food and Drug Administration have ratified a single drug for the cure of ALS and that too, even can prolong the relics to hardly next two to three months. The syndrome involves losing control of the voluntary tendons and finally proving to be fatal by leading to wheeze.

Joining hands of newer associations

This challenge has proved to be a source of inspiration to the other benevolent groups to get involved into it. For example the Macmillan Cancer support became a part of this campaign calling it the Macmillan Ice Age Bucket challenge. Also in the United Kingdom people have been engrossed in this challenge for the Motor Neuron Disease Associations which works almost on the same benign lines as ALS Association.

The ice bucket challenge has changed the initial model of philanthropy by making it reach to a broader base of the altruists through the platform of social media which was previously restricted to a few wealthy alms-givers. This campaign has become all the more successful because it harbors all the three modes of creativity i.e. tactics, liveliness and is a complete package of entertainment and the challengers are everyday taking it to even more arduous levels by making use of helicopters to pour the chilled water on their heads or reaching the most crude places on this planet like Antarctica to provide a bang on.

Here are few of the best ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos of Tech celebrities, which are creating the buzz on the internet these days. Watch, enjoy and donate !

http://youtu.be/3YDxB6hXWYc

http://youtu.be/vCoJAcQ_8Us

http://youtu.be/PfYpZ8wauGs

http://youtu.be/pTiwZ1bPOVI

And, here is some more twist as Barak Obama opted to stay away from Ice bucket as he feels it’s more important to donate $100 than putting a bucket of Ice on head to save $90.