SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Thiel Foundation today introduced the 2015 class of Thiel Fellows. Twenty new fellows have been selected from a record number of 2,800 applications received. Thiel Fellows receive $100,000 and mentorship from the Foundation’s network of founders, investors, and scientists, provided they skip or stop out of college during the two years of the program.
“College can be good for learning about what’s been done before, but it can also discourage young people from doing something new—especially when it leaves them in debt,” said Peter Thiel, who founded the program. “Each of the fellows charts a unique course, but together they have proven that young people can succeed by thinking for themselves instead of competing on old career tracks.”
The Foundation also announced that it will expand the program to accept up to 30 fellows each year, and that, effective immediately, it will begin reviewing Fellowship applications on a rolling basis, uncoupling the selection process from the academic calendar. “Young people shouldn’t have to wait until the end of a school year to build something awesome,” said Jack Abraham, Executive Director of the Fellowship. “Our fellows learn more from the Fellowship than any college can teach. We want to support talented applicants as soon as they’re ready, because great ideas can’t wait.”
Abraham also announced plans to expand the Fellowship by including all college-age young people. While in previous years the program’s age limit was 20, beginning with this year’s class the program will be open to anyone 22 or younger. “Demand for this program has exploded,” he said. “Our advertised limit didn’t stop hundreds of driven 21- and 22-year-olds from contacting us to apply this year, and we believe they deserve the same opportunity to show just how much they can get done outside college.”
Collectively, the 80 current and former Thiel Fellows have already raised more than $142 million in venture capital and generated $41 million in revenue. The fellows have also created 375 jobs in the course of tackling problems ranging from telemedicine and human longevity to solar energy and clean water.
Many of the new fellows will be attending the Thiel Foundation Summit, a twice-yearly gathering for young entrepreneurs to discuss their projects with peers and meet with mentors from the Thiel Fellowship network. Attendees can also pitch their ideas for new companies for an opportunity to win $1,000 grants to get started. The next Thiel Foundation Summit takes place June 6 and 7 in San Francisco. More information is at http://summit.thielfellowship.org/.
Introducing the 2015 Thiel Fellows
Name (Age at
application, Hometown) Project Type
Caroline Beckman (20, Sacramento, CA) Health and Wellness Products
Caroline
is co-founder of Nomva, a health food company that makes 100% organic
fruit and vegetable snacks powered by immune-boosting and
digestion-supporting probiotics. Nomva expects to launch in California
retail stores and online nationwide this summer. Caroline is also a
founding member and VP of Special Projects at Suja
Juice, the nation’s leading organic and cold-pressed juice brand.
Cathy Tie (18, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) Genomic Sequencing
Cathy
is co-founder and CEO of Ranomics,
a biotech startup that is improving the accuracy of genetic testing by
determining the consequences of all variants in hereditary disease genes
before they are seen in patients. Ranomics aims to revolutionize
preventative medicine by determining with unparalleled precision whether
a person is prone to a hereditary condition as a result of their
individual genetic variations.
George Matus (17, Salt Lake City, UT) Unmanned Aerial Systems
George
is CEO of iDrone,
where he designs, builds, and pilots advanced UAV technology. He has
been a drone test pilot since age 12, won a global drone competition at
age 16, and now at 17, manufactures incredibly capable UAVs for consumer
and commercial markets.
Harry Gandhi (22, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) Wearable Medical
Technology
Harry is co-founder and CEO of Medella
Health, a startup that is creating a smart contact lens platform for
continuous and non-invasive monitoring of health vitals, starting with
diabetes management. With this technology, Harry aims to make a reactive
healthcare system proactive, so that diseases can be prevented in
advance instead of treated only after symptoms appear.
Jason Marmon (17, Armonk, NY) Real Estate Technology
Jason
is co-founder and CEO of HomeSwipe,
an apartment rental app that makes renting an apartment easy by
providing reliable listings and the best mobile search experience on the
market.
Jeremy Cai (19, Chicago, IL) – Software, Human Resources
Jeremy
is founder and CEO of OnboardIQ,
where he is reinventing the way companies build a modern workforce by
developing software to streamline and automate interactions with service
providers.
Jihad Kawas (17, Beirut, Lebanon) Sharing Economy
Jihad is
founder and CEO of Saily,
a local marketplace that helps neighbors buy, sell, and swap secondhand
products quickly and seamlessly from their mobile phones. Saily’s
mission is to help build neighborhoods that don’t let anything go to
waste.
John Backus (21, Great Falls, VA) Software
John is
co-founder and CEO of BlockScore,
where he builds software that helps businesses to verify their
customers’ identities, fighting fraud and smoothly complying with
regulations.
John Meyer (19, New York, NY) Media, Crowdsourced News
John
dropped out of New York University to start Fresco
News, a startup that builds 21st century newsroom tools. Fresco
helps news organizations mobilize the smartphone users who are capturing
footage wherever news is breaking.
Kieran O’Reilly (19, Elmont, NY) and Rory O’Reilly (20,
Elmont, NY) Animated GIFs
Rory and his brother Kieran dropped out
of Harvard a year ago to make online communication easier and more fun.
Their company GIFTY
(formerly Gifyoutube) helps people to express themselves in pictures.
Liam Horne (19, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada) Software, Retail Real
Estate
Liam is CTO of PiinPoint,
where he builds software that uses demographic, real estate, and traffic
data to help retailers decide where to open new locations.
Max Lock (18, Bryn Mawr, PA) Supply Chain Logistics
Max is
founder and President of Fleet,
an easy-to-use freight shipping platform that provides reliable
shipments, fair pricing, and an unparalleled customer experience for
shippers of any size -- particularly the small- to medium-sized
companies traditionally underserved by the global freight industry.
Ocean Pleasant (17, New York, NY) Media, Social Good, Technology
Ocean
founded REAL
Magazine, a national youth culture publication dedicated to
engaging millennials on questions of social change. She is currently
developing REAL me, a software application to connect young
people with volunteer opportunities based on their unique interests.
Olenka Polak (21, Greenwich, CT) App-Based Software, Linguistics
Olenka
is co-founder of myLINGO,
a free mobile app that lets you watch Hollywood movies in the theater in
another language, using your smartphone and headphones. Advanced audio
recognition technology ensures a perfectly synchronized studio-quality
dub, eliminating the inconvenience of subtitles.
Patrick Coughran (21, Monterrey, Mexico) Logistics Software
Patrick
is co-founder and CTO of Foxtrot
Systems, a logistics software platform that helps distributors
execute better last-mile deliveries. Foxtrot uses traffic and weather
information, in-house route-optimization algorithms, and machine
learning to boost customers’ fleets’ efficiency and delivery success.
Simon Tian (20, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) Wearables, Consumer
Electronics
Simon is the founder and CEO of Neptune,
which makes mobile hardware that fits on your wrist and helps you to
work seamlessly in any environment.
Stacey Ferreira (22, Scottsdale, AZ) Technology, Entrepreneurship
Stacey
is the co-Author of 2
Billion Under 20: How Millennials Are Breaking Down Age
Barriers & Changing the World and CEO of AdMoar,
an online marketplace that matches brands with YouTube influencers to
facilitate product placement deals. She sold her first company,
MySocialCloud, to Reputation.com in 2013.
Zach Latta (17, El Segundo, CA) Education, Nonprofit
Zach is
Executive Director of hackEDU,
a national nonprofit that brings coding clubs to high schools
nationwide. Students who love music can join band; students who love
sports can join an athletic team; but students who want to code have to
go home and do it alone. Zach’s goal is to spread the hacker ethos (and
programming skills) to every student in the nation.
Zoli Kahan (19, Austin, TX) Mobile Games, Software
Zoli is
CTO of Clay.io,
a startup that publishes popular games to mobile web platforms. With
Clay.io, developers can easily publish their games to more than 5
million users, and users can access hundreds of games instantly on any
platform or device.
