Results for “emergent ventures africa” 13 found
Emergent Ventures Africa and the Caribbean, 7th cohort
Leila Character, Assistant Prof. at Texas A&M, for a project using hyperspectral-imaging drones for archaeological research in Belize.
Nour Bou Malhab, Lebanon, for promoting classical liberal thought throughout Lebanon and across the Maghreb.
Isaac Akintaro, Nigeria/England, computer science PhD Candidate, for travel to San Francisco
Nikita Greenidge, St. Lucia/England, PhD in Surgical Robotics, for a startup using AI to improve surgical techniques in the Caribbean.
Michael Konu, Ghana/USA, for bioengineering research on virtual cells and for career development.
Waldo Krugell, South Africa, Prof. at North West University, for a project improving economics education for South African high-school students.
Edmund Trueman, to develop a digital archive to showcase Congolese comics.
Justin Sooknanan, Trinidad & Tobago, undergrad electrical engineering, travel grant to UK and for career development.
Temitope Johnson, Nigeria/South Africa, for designing a phototherapy device for neonatal jaundice treatment.Mmesomachi Nwachukwu, Nigeria, for running a national training program preparing students for the International Mathematical Olympiad.
Jibrin Jaafaru, Nigeria, PhD candidate, for travel to the United States to pursue a bioinformatics fellowship
Ollie Sayeed, PhD UPenn, historical linguist, for research evaluating the effectiveness of malaria interventions in Africa
Shreya Hegde, for drone-mapping and route-optimization work in Kenya.
Jan Grzymski, Assistant Professor at Lazarski University, to run a summer program introducing Caribbean scholars to Poland’s transition from communist rule to a market-driven economy.
Arun Shanmuganathan, Rwanda, to support mathematics training at the African Olympiad Academy.
Samiya Allen, Barbados, undergrad electronics, travel grant to UK for robotics training and career development.
Rose Mutiso, Kenya, PhD UPenn in materials science, to create the African Tech Futures Lab, to improve policymaking on energy technologies.
Darren Ramsook, Trinidad & Tobago, Postdoc at Trinity College Dublin, for research on AI-driven video compression.
Cheyenne Polius, St. Lucia, for work on astro-tourism and space education in the Caribbean.
I thank Rasheed Griffith for his excellent work on this, and again Nabeel has created excellent software to help organize the list of winners, using AI.
Those unfamiliar with Emergent Ventures can learn more here and here. The EV African and the Caribbean announcement is here and you can see previous cohorts here. If you are interested in supporting this tranche of Emergent Ventures, please write to me or to Rasheed.
Emergent Ventures Africa and Caribbean winners, sixth cohort
Maya Chouikrat, Algeria, to support training for an international olympiad of informatics team.
Mercy Muwanguzi and Kwesiga Pather, Uganda, for sanitation robotics to be used in medical centers.
Johan Fourie, South Africa, Professor of Economics at Stellenbosch University, to write a graphics novel on classical liberalism in a South African context.
Ken Opalo, Associate Professor, Georgetown University, for blogging on African economic development.
Katharine Patterson, Botswana, to support graduate internship in robotics research at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Cyril Narh, Ghana, for general career development.
Jon Ortega, travel grant to Silicon Valley.
Alex Kyabarongo, Uganda, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Makerere University, to pursue graduate school in the USA for biosecurity.
Joshua Regrello, Trinidad and Tobago, first Steelpannist to perform on the Great Wall of China, Guinness Record Holder for longest steelpan performance, for general career development.
Liam O’Dea, London/Argentina, data science research into parliamentary records of the Caribbean for the last 200 years.
Joshua Payne, undergrad at University of Chicago, for research into mRNA vaccine optimisation, and career development.
Abdoulaye Faye, Senegal, developing Catyu, a firm that designs remotely operated robots.
Devaron Bruce, Barbados, PhD candidate at UWI, to support research in political reform in the Caribbean.
Tony Odhiambo, Kenya, undergrad at MIT, for enhanced training of top performers in mathematics olympiads in Kenya.
Sebastian Naranjo, Panama, PhD candidate at Renmin University of China, to support research on the diplomatic relations of China in Central America.
Ivoine Strachan, Bahamas, for research into designing and developing a VR bodysuit
Phumiani Majozi, South Africa, to establish a think tank promoting classical liberalism in South Africa
Pearl Karungi, Rwanda, for research into redesigning menstrual products.
Emmanuel Nnadi, Nigeria, Microbiologist, to support visiting research at the University of Waterloo in phage therapies.
Youhana Nassif, Egypt, to support an animation and arts showcase in Cairo.
Frida Andalu, Tanzania, to support visiting research in petroleum engineering at the University of Aberdeen.
Rupert Tawiah-Quashie, Ghana, to support his research internship at Harvard University concerning symbolic reasoning in AI models.
I thank Rasheed Griffith for his excellent work on this, and again Nabeel has created excellent software to help organize the list of winners, using AI.
Those unfamiliar with Emergent Ventures can learn more here and here. The EV African and the Caribbean announcement is here and you can see previous cohorts here. If you are interested in supporting this tranche of Emergent Ventures, please write to me or to Rasheed.
Emergent Ventures Africa and Caribbean, fifth cohort
Mwigereri Dorcas, Kenya, for research using machine learning techniques for solar energy distribution optimization.
Mmesomachi Nwachukwu, Nigeria, to support the Special Maths Academy which prepares teams for competitions including the International Mathematical Olympiad.
Mohamed Haoussa, Senegal, for the Pan-African Robotics Competition in Dakar which has had over 2800 participants from middle school to university from 37 countries since inception.
Santiago Eyama, Equatorial Guinea, to support the production of YouTube videos on life and society in his country.
John Anthony Francois, St. Lucia/California, PhD Candidate at Stanford, to support his research on Immune Checkpoint Blockade.
Caroline Ochieng, Kenya, PhD candidate at Jomo Kenyatta University, for research into the molecular characterization and transmission dynamics of Chikungunya and Dengue viruses.
Mohamed Diouf, Senegal, for his startup idea of doing merchandise loans (instead of money) to small scale vendors in West Africa.
Kemar Stuart, Barbados, for the production of YouTube videos on Caribbean politics.
Tyrique King, UAE/UK, for developing an AI coding instructor which can train and upskill talent without prior coding experience within 100 days in Africa.
Kurtis Lockhart, US/Tanzania, for developing an economics focused degree program in Zanzibar.
Daniel Alabi, Nigeria/US, Postdoc CS researcher at Columbia University, for Naija Coder, a summer program teaching Nigerian high school students computer science in Abuja and Lagos.
Joshua Walcott, Trinidad/Poland, University lecturer in politics in Poland, for research and writing on existential risk and Caribbean geopolitics.
Nikita Greenidge, St. Lucia/UK, PhD candidate at University of Leeds, for research on surgical robotics.
Masahiro Kubo, PhD candidate at Brown University, for research on how Catholic missionary work contributed significantly to the accumulation of human capital in Africa.
Fiona Moejes, to assist the Mawazo Institute based in Kenya, which supports early-career female scholars and thought leaders in Africa.
Tobi Lawson, Nigeria, to assist in the production of the Ideas Untapped substack and podcast focused on African development.
Samukai Sarnor, Liberia, for research focused on monetary policy in Liberia.
Chipo Muwowo, Zambia/UK, for Capital Markets Africa, a Substack and podcast focused on listed companies and the regulatory environment for finance in Africa.
Peter Courtney, South Africa/Netherlands, PhD candidate at Stellenbosch University, for research on implementing Georgist land value policies in Africa.
Led by the excellent Rasheed Griffith.
Emergent Ventures Africa and Caribbean, fourth cohort
Sokhar Samb is a Data Scientist from Senegal. Her EV grant supports her work of drone mapping Senegalese cities and towns such as Dakar and Semone by capturing high-resolution aerial imagery and Light Detection.
Cesare Adeniyi-Martins is from Nigeria and founded Abelar to promote the special jurisdiction economics charter cities in Africa. His EV grant is for general career support.
Alecia McKenzie is a Jamaican author currently residing in France. Her EV grant supports her work at the Caribbean Translation Project to translate Caribbean literature (originally written in English, French, Spanish, or Dutch) into Mandarin Chinese.
Lorenzo Gonzalez is a Belizean currently residing in Canada. Lorenzo has a Masters degree in Economics from the University of Waterloo. His EV grant is to support his writing on tourism on Belize Adventure to promote economic growth in the country.
Keeghan Patrick, Graduate student at MIT; Shergaun Roserie, Mechanical Engineer at FAANG; and Dylan Paul, current MBA student at Harvard Business School. All three are from Saint Lucia. Their EV grant is to support their work through their organization, Obtronics, which, among other activities, offers robotics engineering educational programs to students in St. Lucia.
Raymer Medina is from the Dominican Republic. His EV grant supports his work on low-cost robotics design and development.
Thomas Aichele is multi-based in Chicago, Dakar, and Abidjan. Thomas works in the FinTech industry in West Africa. His EV grant supports his writing on technology infrastructure progress in West Africa.
Marla Dukharan is a Trinidadian Economist. Her EV grant is to support the production of a documentary on the causes and effects of the EU taxation blacklisting of Caribbean countries.
Mary Najjuma is a Ugandan Engineer and current PhD candidate at the London South Bank University. Her EV grant supports her research on rural efficient and optimal cooling hubs.
Andrew Ddembe, Ugandan social entrepreneur. This follow-on grant is to help support the work of his organization, Mobiklinic, in promoting medication care and education in rural Uganda.
Farai Munjoma was born and raised in Zimbabwe and resides in Edinburgh. He founded the Sasha Pathways Program, a virtual career accelerator for African youth. His EV grant is to support the career development program.
Stéphanie Joseph, originally from Haiti, is currently residing in the US. Stéphanie is a current MBA candidate at Harvard Business School. Her EV grant supports her project on land-mile financial inclusion in the Greater Caribbean.
Evalyn Sintoya Mayetu is a Kenyan guide on the Greater Maasai Mara. She is the country’s first female safari guide to achieve Silver Level certification. Her EV grant is for general career development.
Dr. Collin Constantine, born and raised in Guyana, is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Girton College, University of Cambridge. His EV grant supports his research on integrating income distribution and the balance of payments constraint into macroeconomics, focusing on the Caribbean.
I am very thankful for the leadership of Rasheed Griffith here, he also wrote those descriptions.
Emergent Ventures Africa and Caribbean, third cohort
Dr. Keabetswe Ncube is a Geneticist from South Africa. Her EV grant is for her work in using statistical and genetic inferences to help rural farmers maximize yields.
Frida Andalu is a petroleum engineer by training from Tanzania and a Ph.D. candidate. Her EV grant is to assist in her research of developing plant-based volatile corrosion inhibitors to mitigate top-of-line corrosion in natural gas pipelines.
Desta Gebeyehu is a biochemical researcher from Kenya. Her EV grant is to assist in her research of developing bioethanol-gel fuel from organic waste.
Bobson Rugambwa is a software engineer from Rwanda. After graduating with a master’s from Carnegie Mellon University he co-founded MVend to tackle the problem of financial inclusion in Rwanda.
Sylvia Mutinda is a Chemist and Ph.D. researcher from Kenya. Her EV grant is to assist with her search on strigolactone biosynthesis focusing on countering striga parasites in sorghum farms in Kenya.
Dr. Lamin Sonko, born in the Gambia and raised in the U.S., is an Emergency Medicine physician and recent Wharton MBA graduate. He is the founder of Diaspora Health, an asynchronous telemedicine platform focused on patients in the Gambia and Senegal.
Cynthia Umuhire is an astronomer from Rwanda and Ph.D. researcher. She works as a space science analyst at the Rwanda Space Agency. Her EV grant is to assist her in establishing a knowledge hub for junior African researchers in space science.
Brian Kaaya is a social entrepreneur from Uganda. He is the founder of Rural Solars Uganda, a social enterprise enabling rural households in Uganda to access electricity through affordable solar panels.
Shem Best is a designer and urban planning enthusiast from Barbados. His EV grant is to start a blog and podcast on urban planning in the Caribbean to spur discourse on the built environment in the Caribbean and its impact on regional integration.
Susan Ling is an undergraduate researcher from Canada. Her EV grant is to continue her research on biodegradable, long-acting contraceptive implants with a focus on Africa, and general career development
Elizabeth Mutua is a computer scientist and Ph.D. researcher from Kenya. Her EV grant is to assist in her research on an efficient deep learning system with the capacity to diagnose retinopathy of prematurity disease.
Youhana Nassif is the founder and director of Animatex, the biggest animation festival in Cairo, Egypt. His EV grant is for the expansion of the festival and general career development.
Esther Matendo is a Ph.D. candidate in food science from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her EV grant is to assist in her research on plant-based treatments of mycotoxin contamination on maize in South Kivu (one of the main maize production zones in the DRC).
Alex Kyabarongo is a recent graduate of veterinary medicine from Uganda. He is now a political affairs intern at the Implementation Support Unit of the Biological Weapons Convention at the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs in Geneva. His EV grant is for general career development.
Margaret Murage is a Ph.D. researcher from Kenya. Her EV grant is to assist in her research of developing new photosensitizing agents for photodynamic therapy for cancer treatment.
Kwesiga Pather, for design and development of low-cost drones for agricultural uses in Uganda and general career development.
Dr. Sidy Ndao is a materials engineer by training from Senegal. He is the founder and President of the Dakar American University of Science and Technology (DAUST). The university provides a rigorous American-style English-based engineering education to African students.
Chiamaka Mangut is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University from Nigeria. Her EV grant is to fund new field research using archaeobotanical methods to study ancient populations in the Jos Plateau.
Dr. Yabebal Fantaye is Cosmologist by training from Ethiopia. He is the co-founder of 10 Academy, a training bootcamp to assist recent graduates of quant fields to acquire remote data science-related jobs.
For his very good work on these award I wish to heartily than Rasheed Griffith. And here is a link to the previous cohort of Africa winners.
Emergent Ventures Africa and African diaspora, second cohort
Winnie Nakiyingi, a Ugandan Statistician living in Rwanda, works as a graduate teaching assistant at the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Kigali campus). She is the founder of an organisation (Words That Count) which promotes STEM careers to girls in Africa. The grant is to further expand the organisation and help to create more content.
Gosiame Siwawa is a Motswana medical doctor in South Africa studying specialization in Nuclear Medicine. The grant is for career development. He intends to open a nuclear medicine practice in Gaborone. He did his medical studies in Trinidad and Tobago (with a scholarship from the government of Botswana).
Olayemi Olaniyi, a Nigerian social commentator. He has a podcast/youtube called The Disaffected Nigerian. He discusses political economy topics and wants to promote Libertarian ideas applied to Nigerian governance issues. The grant is to upgrade the podcast.
Anne Chisa, a Malawian living in South Africa, is a PhD candidate in crop science. She has a podcast (over 100 episodes) called Roots of Science in which she interviews African scientists and promotes science discussion in South Africa. The grant is for her to expand and upgrade the podcast.
Again, I thank Rasheed Griffith for his leadership in this project.
Emergent Ventures Africa and African diaspora, first cohort
Saron Berhane, Australian-Ethiopian living in Ghana, for research in synthetic biology (bio-leather produced using microbes). Previously she was the co-founder of an agriculture technology startup that specializes in real-time airborne disease detection.
Emmanuel Nnadi, Nigerian microbiologist and lecturer at Plateau State University in Bokkos, for research on phage therapies and the development of a phage bank in Nigeria.
Dithapelo Medupe, Botswana medical doctor and Anthropology PhD candidate at UPenn, to support her research on statistical approaches to multilinear evolution in African development and for general career development.
Mercy Muwanguzi, Ugandan high school senior, to support her research on robotics design and development for medical purposes in Kampala. She was jointly awarded the President’s Innovation Award for Science and Innovation.
Nseabasi Akpan, a professional photographer from Ibadan, for promoting photography education to young people in Nigeria.
Colin Clarke, an Astrophysics undergrad in Ireland, for travel to Nairobi to assist in providing astronomy education to rural schools in Kenya with a non-profit called the Travelling Telescope.
Geraud Neema, Congolese policy analyst living in Mauritius, for in-depth research on the domestic policy impact of Africans educated in China and for general career development.
I thank Rasheed Griffith for leading the selection process behind our new branch of Emergent Ventures Africa and African diaspora.
Emergent Ventures winners, 44th cohort
Adelya Makhanova, Stanford, AI for minerals exploration.
Gleb Razgar, London, brain emulation.
Stephen Webb, London, former civil servant, to write a book on how British government could work better.
Dima Yanovsky, MIT, robotics.
Aakarsh Vermani, Berkeley, summer support to live in Berkeley, computational biology.
Kristine Petrov Pashin, Stanford, to ease the patent process.
Eviella Sefu, 16, Congo/South Africa/Elkhart, Indiana, to attend a rationality meeting.
Aristotle Ronyak, Tucson, to explore and present what it is like to grow up with autism.
Justyna Przyborska, Limerick, to visit YC in SF.
Michael Muthukrishna, LSE/NYU, progress studies center at LSE, and also NYU.
Amrita Ghag, 16, Brampton, to attend a conference in Switzerland.
Lynetta Wang, Dublin/Imperial College London, “self-aware therapeutics.”
Ethan Glueck and Sasha Phoebe Zhang, Stanford, to spread 3-D printers in rural Taiwan.
Sofiia Lipkevych, MIT/Ukraine, translating online course material into Ukrainian.
Emergent Ventures winners, 29th cohort
Dan Rivera, South Carolina, FavorPiedmont, addiction recovery and treatment.
Lukas Bogacz, Utrecht/South Africa, to start a company based on fine-tuning LLMs.
Brian Wang, MIT, Panoplia Laboratories, for DNA-based pan-virus vaccine research.
Gabriel Abrams, Washington, D.C., Sidwell (high school), LLMs and economic research.
Chloe Chia, Berkeley, to pursue computational research about human behavior in dense cities.
Jannik Schilling, 18, Hamburg, Bay Area (?), general career development.
David Siegel, to assist in the education of his son Micah Siegel, Bethesda, MD, to produce a YouTube channel about how to help animals.
Shannon Kim, University of Chicago, biology and the origins of life, “Can prebiotic networks and the spread of chiral information explain the origins of biological homochirality?”
Kyrylo Kalashnikov, mini-robotics, University of Toronto, from Ukraine.
Andrew Nijmeh, Toronto, to study the tech of traffic management systems, 15 years old.
Vinaya Sharma, Ontario, “VoltVision.AI is transforming electric grid fault detection and monitoring with autonomous drones, computer vision, and 3D and thermal imaging, helping embark on cheaper, faster and safer transmission line maintenance.”
Stuart Buck, Houston, Good Science Project, to improve the study of meta science and improve science policy.
Leah Gimbel, Washington, DC, to create a new system to grade principals.
Benjamin Yeoh, London, to organize a London Unconference about home schooling. Also works as a playwright.
Ukraine cohort:
Eugene Shcherbinin, London/LSE/Odesa, general career support, mathematics and economics.
Anna Orekhova, to aid her new company in science education, Kyiv.
Bohdana Pavlychko, Kyiv, venture capital and talent search, The Second Derivative Fund.
Nadia Parfan, Takflix, Ukrainian movies marketed abroad by streaming, Kyiv
Dmytro Marakhovskiya, co-founder and CEO of Rozmova, a Ukrainian tech platform that connects psychotherapists with clients, to expand into Poland.
And yes there are still other winners to be announced, forthcoming…
Emergent Ventures winners, 24th cohort
Shakked Noy, MIT economics, to do RCTs on GPTs as teaching and learning tools.
Gabriel Birnbaum, Bay Area, from Fortaleza, Brazil, to investigate lithography as a key technology used in the manufacturing of microchips.
Moritz Wallawitsch, Berkeley. RemNote is his company, educational technology, and to develop a complementary podcast and for general career development.
Katherine Silk, Boston/Cambridge, general career support and to support advice for early-stage startups.
Benjamin Schneider, Brooklyn. To write a book on the new urbanism.
Joseph Walker, Sydney, Australia, to run and expand the Jolly Swagman podcast.
Avital Balwit, Bay area, travel grant and general career development.
Benjamin Chang, Cambridge, MA. General career support, “I will develop novel RNA riboswitches for gene therapy control in human cells using machine learning.”
Daniel Kang, Berkeley/Champagne-Urbana, biometrics and crypto.
Aamna Zulfifiqar, Karachi, Pakistan, to attend UK higher education to study economics.
Jeremy Stern, Glendale, CA, Tablet magazine. To write a book.
James Meech, PhD student, Cambridge, UK, to work on a random number generator for better computer architectures.
Arthur Allshire, University of Toronto, background also in Ireland and Australia, robotics and support to attend conferences.
Jason Hausenloy, 17, Singapore, travel and general career development, issues surrounding artificial intelligence.
Sofia Sanchez, Metepec, Mexico, biology and agricultural productivity, to spend a summer at a Stanford lab.
Ukraine tranche:
Andrey Liscovich, eastern Ukraine, formerly of Harvard, to provide equipment for public transportation, communication and emergency power generation to civilian authorities of frontline-adjacent areas in Ukraine which have lost vital infrastructure.
Chris Nicholson, Bay area, working as a broker to maintain internet connectivity in Ukraine.
Andrii Nikolaiev, Arsenii Nikolaiev, Zarina Kodyrova, Kvanta, to advance Ukrainian mathematics, help and train math Olympiad winners.
As usual, India and Africa/Caribbean tranches will be reported separately.
Emergent Ventures winners, seventeenth cohort
Caleb Watney and Alec Stapp, to found a think tank related to progress studies.
Joe Francis, a farmer in Wales, to write a book on the economic and historical import of slavery in the American republic.
Ananya Chadha, freshman at Stanford, general career development, her interests include neurology and electrical engineering.
Eric Xia, Brown University to develop word association software and for general career development. He is “making a metaphysical sport” and working on word.golf.
Isaak Freeman, from southeast Austria, in a gap year after high school, general career development.
Davis Kedrosky, undergraduate at UC Berkeley, for economic history and general career development. Home page here, Substack here.
Katherine Dee and Emmet Penney, for general career development including collaboration. Among other topics, Katherine has worked on reimagining tech and Emmett has worked on promoting nuclear fusion.
Grant Gordon, to remedy hunger and nutrition problems in East Africa and also more broadly.
Sofia Sigal-Passeck, Yale University, “Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Uniphage, a biotechnology start-up which aims to eradicate bacterial diseases using the combined power of bacteriophages and artificial intelligence.”
Brian Potter, to improve productivity in construction, through both writing and practice. Here is his Substack.
Daniel Liu, attending UCLA, to study computational biology and for general career development.
Molly Mielke, founder and CEO of Moth Minds, a new company to find talent and revolutionize philanthropy: “Moth Minds is building the foundation that enables anyone to start their own grants program based on finding work that gets them excited about the future.”
Here are previous Emergent Ventures winners.
The third cohort of Emergent Ventures recipients
As always, note that the descriptions are mine and reflect my priorities, as the self-descriptions of the applicants may be broader or slightly different. Here goes:
Jordan Schneider, for newsletter and podcast and writing work “explaining the rise of Chinese tech and its global ramifications.”
Michelle Rorich, for her work in economic development and Africa, to be furthered by a bike trip Cairo to Capetown.
Craig Palsson, Market Power, a new YouTube channel for economics.
Jeffrey C. Huber, to write a book on tech and economic progress from a Christian point of view.
Mayowa Osibodu, building AI programs to preserve endangered languages.
David Forscey, travel grant to look into issues and careers surrounding protection against election fraud.
Jennifer Doleac, Texas A&M, to develop an evidence-based law and economics, crime and punishment podcast.
Fergus McCullough, University of St. Andrews, travel grant to help build a career in law/history/politics/public affairs.
Justin Zheng, a high school student working on biometrics for cryptocurrency.
Matthew Teichman at the University of Chicago, for his work in philosophy podcasting.
Kyle Eschen, comedian and magician and entertainer, to work on an initiative for the concept of “steelmanning” arguments.
Here is the first cohort of winners, and here is the second cohort. Here is the underlying philosophy behind Emergent Ventures. Note by the way, if you received an award very recently, you have not been forgotten but rather will show up in the fourth cohort.
Emergent Ventures grant recipients, the first cohort
Here is the first round of winners of the new Emergent Ventures initiative at Mercatus, led by me. The list is ordered roughly in the order grants were made, and reflects no other prioritization. All project descriptions are mine alone and should not be considered literal attributions of intent to the project applicants. Here goes:
Anonymous grant for writing in Eastern Europe.
Pledged grant to San Francisco’s Topos House, conditional on finding a “social science prodigy” to live in the house for a while and interact with the other Topos fellows. Topos is a San Francisco house where several tech prodigies live and periodically seminars and larger group interactions are held there or connected to the house.
Travel grant made to 18-year-old economics prodigy, to travel to San Francisco to meet with members of the “rationality community.” The hope is to boost her career trajectory.
Grant to support the work of Mark Lutter and his Center for Innovative Governance Research, on charter cities and also an attempt to create a new charter city.
Grant to Harshita Arora to help her pursue work in brain science, including brain-computer interfaces to help disabled people manipulate and move objects. Harshita is a 17-year-old Indian prodigy, who first received attention for her programming work in the app space. Harshita made her bio and proposal public: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j5Zf2RIiKVUUZzJb6qGQdx2WmG7q4NS9/view
Leonard Bogdonoff has a project to scrape Instagram and create a searchable concordance of street art around the world. His website is here and his blog is medium.com/@rememberlenny. One use of this project is to amplify the voice of “protest art” against the constraints of censorship from autocratic governments, but it is also a new way to glean usable information from Instagram.
Travel and conference grant to Juan Pablo Villarino, from Argentina, sometimes called “the world’s greatest hitchhiker.”
Ben Southwood, public intellectual from England, support for his writing and research on why progress in science has slowed down.
Eric Lofgren has worked at the Pentagon for seven years and now will spend a year at Mercatus/George Mason to develop the skills, including blogging and podcasting, to become the nation’s leading public intellectual on defense procurement.
A two-year pledge to Gaurav Venkataraman, at University College of London, to support his doctoral work on the idea of RNA-based memory. This research also has exciting implications for the design of artificial intelligence.
Joy Buchanan, economist, a grant to conduct research on why people become entrepreneurs and initiate start-ups, using the methods of experimental economics.
Michael Sonnenschein, Masters student at MIT in development economics (and a television screenwriter) a grant for research to reform and improve the Haitian lottery system, and turn it into a means to combat poverty.
Stefan Roots is writing and editing an on-line and also paper newspaper to cover local news in Chester, Pennsylvania, aimed at the African-American community.
Jeffrey Clemens, professor at UC San Diego, a grant to help him develop his on-line writing in economics.
Kelly Smith has a project to further extend and organize a parent-run charter school system in Arizona, Prenda, using Uber-like coordinating apps and “minimalist” educational methods.
David Perell, to encourage and support his work in podcasting and social media.
We are in the midst of processing several other awards as well, so do not worry if you are not yet mentioned.
I am delighted to welcome this very prestigious and accomplished “entering class” of Emergent Ventures fellows. If you are considering applying, please note that we are interested in other topics and methods as well.