For the fourth year running, Irishwoman Jane Murray is championing the Run in the Dark event in Luxembourg City Centre; On Wednesday 15 November from 20:00, as darkness falls, more than 750 runners will gather in Clausen, and take to the city centre streets, a river of red lights making their way through the historic city centre.
They will join the 25,000 people around the world in more than 50 locations who will get up from their armchairs and televisions or leave their offices, pull on their running shoes, slip on their red flashing armbands and hit the road. Together, they will become part of a living light show flowing through the streets like lava, and join an incredible global event for a great cause. This unique event is to raise funds for spinal cord injury, for the Mark Pollock Trust. The participants will raise a toast to Mark Pollock at the post-race event, sponsored by ING Luxembourg and the Big Beer Company.
The event is hugely popular, doubling in size this year to 750 participants and is kindly sponsored by ING Luxembourg, Kerry Group Luxembourg and the Big Beer Company, and supported by People-First Luxembourg.
The event is part of a Global Run in the Dark which funds Mark Pollock Trust’s mission to fast-track a cure for paralysis. For further information, see www.runinthedark.org/luxembourg/
There is no cure for paralysis, or any meaningful therapies for people with spinal cord injury. But the Mark Pollock Trust aims to change this reality by finding and connecting people around the world to fast-track a cure for paralysis. The Mark Pollock Trust’s main fundraiser – the Run in the Dark – plays a vital part in funding this mission.
The Run in the Dark started as an idea on a notepad and has grown from several hundred people running around Trinity College Dublin in 2011, to a global event of 25,000 people. This year, with a target of €500,000, Run in the Dark will help to fund more global collaborations and multi-subject research trials.
Participants can run or walk 5km or run 10km at an official event in Belfast, London, Manchester, Dublin and Cork, or they can join one of the 45 Pop-Up events which take place across 6 continents from Sydney to San Francisco.
About the Mark Pollock Trust
The Mark Pollock Trust has reached a number of key milestones in the last five years: In creating global collaborations, the Mark Pollock Trust facilitated an ongoing transatlantic research collaboration between Trinity College Dublin and UCLA, and the formation of a $4 million venture philanthropy fund with a Silicon Valley VC and a US philanthropic foundation.
In the area of scientific research, Mark Pollock became the world’s leading test pilot in Ekso Bionics robotics legs, and the first person in the world with chronic complete paralysis to regain enough voluntary control to actively take steps in a robotic exoskeleton. The Mark Pollock Trust is providing funding for upcoming multi-subject trials to replicate research carried out on Mark Pollock. This will make Ireland the leading centre in the world for this type of research.
Commenting on its mission, Mark says, “We are exploring the frontiers of spinal cord injury recovery by bringing scientists, robotics engineers, medics and foundations and financiers together to work in ways they never have before. We are scaling those collaborations by providing an outsourced business service to help them to access research funding, project manage collaborative teams and market their results. And we are connecting scientists and their funding foundations with business expertise and capital to commercialise research discoveries.”
About Mark Pollock
Unbroken by blindness in 1998, Mark went on to compete in ultra endurance races across deserts, mountains, and the polar ice caps including being the first blind person to race to the South Pole. He also won silver and bronze medals for rowing at the Commonwealth Games and set up a motivational speaking business.
In 2010 Mark was left paralysed after falling from a second story window. He is now exploring the frontiers of spinal cord injury recovery combining an innovative electrical stimulator over his spinal cord and a drug super-charging his nervous system, whilst walking hundreds of thousands of steps in his Ekso Bionics robotic legs. Through the Mark Pollock Trust (www.markpollocktrust.org) he is on a mission to find and connect people around the world to fast-track a cure for paralysis.
