“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”
– Mark Twain
Opportunities for Students in the Seasteading Movement
The Seasteading Institute has good news for students interested in seasteading, technology and entrepreneurship! This year, in addition to expanding our body of professional research, we are launching a new crowd-sourced volunteer research program, specifically geared toward undergraduate and graduate students. We will help anyone capable of producing polished research papers or other valuable end products to receive institutional credit through their schools’ independent study or pursue an internship with the Institute, and to be published through our various channels. These projects will accelerate the budding of a for-profit seasteading sector and, in turn, help enable the establishment of permanent, autonomous communities on the ocean.
As Peter Thiel and others have pointed out, today’s college graduates are sorely lacking experience in real-world problem solving. This was Thiel’s motivation for starting his 20 Under 20 Fellowship, which gives seed money to promising young individuals who skip or postpone college to pursue bold new ideas. Our projects, which are intended to solve practical problems facing early seasteading business ventures, offer a similar opportunity to participate in the discovery process of entrepreneurship, without requiring you to drop out of school. Like the Thiel Fellowship, seasteading business venture-related projects allow enterprising students to distinguish themselves from a growing pool of college-certified job applicants, pursuing projects as either independent study or internships with the Institute.
en•tre•pre•neur•ship (n.) – the process of discovering new ways of combining resources to generate value.
We draw our suggested research topics from actual obstacles that existing seasteading teams are currently trying to overcome in their quest to stimulate a start-up sector for governance. All topics are generalizable to a number of different business models, and cover many fields, meaning there are opportunities for students across a variety of majors, including but not limited to the following:
- Architecture/Design
- Business
- Development Studies
- Earth Science
- Economics
- Engineering (industrial, electrical, mechanical)
- Geography
- International Relations
- Law
- Oceanography
- Political Science
What the Institute Offers Students
We are committed to making the application and administrative process as easy as possible for all interested students. Our knowledgeable staff will guide the direction of various projects to maximize the impact on the seasteading movement. Additionally, we stand ready to tap into our extensive community to recruit mentors and advisors for the projects.
While the ability to receive independent study credit will vary by academic institution, most universities allow significant leeway for students who put together structured and thoughtful proposals.
We will help students craft initial proposals to the mutual satisfaction of the Institute and the school or department in question, and will continue to lend support throughout the research process. Our ultimate goal is to publish all quality projects, adding to the body of knowledge on which entrepreneurs will draw when the time to launch new seasteading ventures is ripe.
©2012 The Seasteading Institute