The Thiel Fellowship

Application Deadline: December 31, 2013.

The Thiel Fellowship brings together some of the world’s most creative and motivated young people, and helps them bring their most ambitious ideas and projects to life. Thiel Fellows are given a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000 to skip college and focus on their work, their research, and their self-education. They are mentored by our network of visionary thinkers, investors, scientists, and entrepreneurs, who provide guidance and business connections that can’t be replicated in any classroom. Rather than just studying, you’re doing.

The Thiel Fellowship (originally named 20 under 20) is a fellowship created by Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation. The fellowship is intended for students under the age of 20 and offers them a total of $100,000 over two years as well as guidance and other resources to drop out of college and pursue other work, which could involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Selection for the fellowship is through a competitive annual process, with about 20-30 Fellows selected annually.

During the two-year fellowship, the Thiel Foundation and its network of mentors provide guidance and support to help the Thiel Fellows build their scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial ideas. While fellows are expected to work on their innovative ideas full-time, they determine their specific paths; this often means starting a company, but could also entail doing freelance work, developing a social movement, interning at another company, or pursuing research and development independently.

Since the Thiel Fellowship began in 2011, more than sixty young people have been awarded Thiel Fellowships and pursued projects to push back the boundaries of fields such as nuclear and alternative energy, mobile health, robotics, biotechnology, 3D printing, synthetic biology, public health, education, finance, scientific equipment, gaming, network security, data storage, electrical transmission and software.

Who is eligible to apply?

• Candidates must be 19 years old or younger as of December 31st of the application year.
• The ideal candidate has ideas that simply cannot wait.
• She or he wants to change the world and has already started to do it in some fashion.
• Thiel Fellowship wants fellows who dream big and have clear plans, who take risks and learn from mistakes, who think long-term and like to tinker. Inspire us.
• Applicants must be able to submit their application in English.
• Applicants must submit their application by midnight on December 31st of this year.