data philanthropy plays an important role in academia. researchers encounter countless obstacles whilst attempting to access data. this data is available to a limited number of researchers with sole access to restricted resources who are authorized to utilize this information; like social media streams enabling them to produce more knowledge and develop new studies. for example, twitter markets access to its real-time apis at exorbitant prices, which often surpasses the budgets of most researchers. 'data grants' is a trial program created by twitter that provides a selective number of academics and researchers with access to real-time databases in order to garner more knowledge. they apply to gain entry into vast data downloads, on specific topics.