I research and teach organic chemistry at The University of Sydney. My students and I make molecules for a number of reasons: sometimes to develop new ways of connecting atoms together, and sometimes because the molecules have properties that are useful to society.
Much of the work we've done has been achieved with a traditional academic model of working in secrecy and in competition with other groups. Recently we were challenged with a tough research problem where we needed to find an inexpensive way to produce a drug used by millions of people in underdeveloped countries. We decided to abandon the usual way of doing science, and instead practiced Open Science, where all our data and ideas were freely available, and anyone could take part. This accelerated our research. I'm more than excited about this idea.