Singularity taps students’ technology ideas
Singularity University
The inaugural graduates of Singularity University, a Silicon Valley school backed by NASA, Google Inc., and tech industry luminaries like Ray Kurzweil, unveiled their grand visions on Thursday for leveraging emerging technologies to solve humanity’s great challenges.
Before a filled conference room at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, the students faced the dual pressures of presenting what were both final class projects for the faculty on hand, as well as business pitches to the venture capitalists and business leaders in attendance. Most, if not all, of the four teams hope to secure the funding necessary to transform their ideas into viable ventures.
The stated mission of the unaccredited university, founded in 2008, is to foster leaders who will build on rapid advances in and convergence across areas like biotechnology, supercomputing, nanotechnology and robotics to address intractable problems.
During the nine-week interdisciplinary graduate studies program, the 40 students were asked to develop projects that could help 1 billion people within 10 years. The individuals divided themselves into four teams focused on different challenges.
