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Peter Thiel Opens Application Period for 2015 Thiel FellowshipsSAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- The Thiel Foundation announced today that it has begun accepting applications for a new class of Thiel Fellows. Since 2011, the Thiel Fellowship has awarded more than 80 grants to help young entrepreneurs to pursue their visions in science and technology. "Each passing year should bring more opportunities for young people, not fewer. Yet student debt continues to skyrocket, career prospects remain grim, and it becomes increasingly clear that there are no safe or simple bets for the rising generation," said Thiel Foundation president Jonathan Cain. "With the Thiel Fellowship and Thiel Foundation Summits, we're offering young people freedom. Freedom to pursue ideas they find meaningful instead of mandatory. Freedom to take big risks instead of big debt. Freedom, essentially, to write their own futures." Thiel Fellowships consist of separate grants of $100,000 over two years to 20 young people per year so that they can leave the classroom and pursue innovation. In addition to the financial support, Thiel Fellows are mentored by hundreds of highly accomplished entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, thinkers, and innovators of the Thiel Network. In exchange, Thiel Fellows agree to take a two-year hiatus from the classroom so they can focus their energy and attention on creating innovative startups, technologies, and nonprofits. During the two-year fellowship, the Thiel Fellows work on their innovative ideas full-time, but they determine their specific paths; this might mean starting a company, but it could also mean doing freelance work, developing a social movement, interning at another company, or pursuing research and development independently. Teams of up to four are also encouraged to apply. Since the Thiel Fellowship began in 2011, more than eighty young people have been awarded Thiel Fellowships and pursued projects to expand the frontiers of fields such as network security, app development, neural networks, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cryptocurrency, open-source technology, 3D printing, mobile health, alternative energy, public health, education, finance, gaming, data streaming, and cloud storage. "By our most recent count, Thiel Fellows have generated more than $115 million in economic activity, including $64 million raised in venture funding; $28 million in product revenue; and nearly $24 million raised from company exits, grants, partnerships. They have created more than 50 new companies and more than 220 jobs at those enterprises," said Jim O'Neill, cofounder of the Thiel Fellowship and partner and chief operating officer at Mithril Capital Management. "The Thiel Fellowship has impacted the lives of many more people than just the fellows and their employees. They have also developed products that help other people get better jobs, that empower students and teachers, and that energize the world. Whether a fellow starts or joins a company, researches ideas, enables social change, or does something entirely new, the common thread among all of them is how they improve not just the world, but the lives of others." November Thiel Foundation Summit and Application Timeline (News - Alert) "We've made some significant changes to the application process this year," said Thiel Fellowship Progra Director Danielle Strachman. "We streamlined the application to make it shorter and more pointed--we want applicants to spend their time on their own projects instead of paperwork. We've also developed some special incentives for early submission. We like to engage with our applicants early and often, whether it's inviting some to our next Thiel Foundation Summit or matching up talent with potential internship and job opportunities within our network. We've also pushed back the final deadline to allow applicants who have already been working hard on their projects to provide us with timely updates as they develop their ideas. Our mantra this year is 'apply early and update us often!'" For the 2015 applications, a new timeline has been developed to incentivize early submission. Specific highlights include:
The next Thiel Foundation Summit will be held in Las Vegas, NV on November 14-16, 2014 in conjunction with the Downtown Project, the $350 million urban revitalization project led by Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. Thiel Foundation Summits are twice yearly events that foster creative spaces - online and off - for young entrepreneurs to collaborate, learn from and inspire one another. The event will feature speakers from the Thiel Fellowship mentor network, breakout sessions on topics important to young entrepreneurs (many led by summit attendees themselves), mentor office hours, and special collaborative activities. The Las Vegas summit will include a "startup crawl" where attendees can meet many of the innovative Downtown Las Vegas businesses that are helping transform the area into a new entrepreneurial ecosystem. Thiel Foundation Summits are open to anyone 23 and younger working on a project to better the world. Admission is by invitation only. For more information or to apply for an invitation visit: summit.thielfellowship.org "Rookie of the Year Award" with Major League Hacking In conjunction with Major League Hacking (MLH), the organization powering official MLH student hackathons in the U.S., Canada, and United Kingdom, the Thiel Fellowship has announced a "Rookie of the Year Award" given to the best individual or team of first-time hackathon entrants. MLH Hackathons are weekend long programming competitions where student hackers get together to show off their technical skills. Students from hundreds of universities team up to build things like websites, applications, hardware hacks, and at the end of the weekend they show them off to the world. The winner of the Thiel "Rookie of the Year" award, selected from across all major MLH events in the fall of 2014, will receive a fast-tracked review of their Thiel Fellowship application, all expenses paid to attend the next Thiel Foundation Summit, an invitation to the Thiel Foundation Summit VIP dinner with special guests, an invitation to present the hack, or a new project on stage at the summit, a mentor session with a member of the Thiel mentor network, a signed copy of Peter Thiel's new book, "Zero to One," and other Thiel-MLH swag. "Tests and grades tend to discourage risk-taking, as bad marks become permanent tattoos of failure on a resume. Hackathons have become one of the only places students can build on campus without fear of consequences," said Mike Gibson, Thiel Foundation vice president of Grants. "These events prove that young engineers and entrepreneurs can create more value in a single weekend than in an entire semester's worth of classes." Applications and more information about the Thiel Fellowship and the current fellows are available now at www.thielfellowship.org. Applications for the 2015 class are due by 11:59 P.M. (UTC-12) on January 15, 2015. Fellowship recipients will be announced in spring, 2014. ABOUT THE THIEL FOUNDATION The Thiel Foundation defends and promotes freedom in all its dimensions: political, personal, and economic. The Thiel Foundation supports innovative scientific research and new technologies that empower people to improve their lives, champions organizations and individuals who expose human rights abuses and authoritarianism in all its guises, and encourages the exploration of new ideas and new spaces where people can be less reliant on government and where freedom can flourish. For more information, see thielfoundation.org, thielfellowship.org and BreakoutLabs.org.
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