Moon Walker Solar Panels

Finding the Next Mark Zuckerberg

Peter Thiel University is now in session.

On Wednesday, Mr. Thiel, a venture capitalist, announced the fellows of his 20 Under 20 program, a nonprofit initiative that grants $100,000 to students under the age of 20 to drop out of college and pursue their interests for two years. The budding entrepreneurs will also have access to an extensive network of technology mentors. From more than 400 applications, the Thiel Foundation — Mr. Thiel’s philanthropic arm — whittled the field down to 24 individuals (groups were allowed to apply).

While Mr. Thiel is not taking a personal stake in his fellows’ companies, the inaugural class certainly reflects the contrarian investor’s interest in complex technologies, like space exploration, biotechnology and robotics.

One winner, John Burnham, is looking at space mining and how to extract minerals from cosmic material like asteroids and comets. Another fellow, Ben Yu, a freshman at Harvard who has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, is interested in creating an e-commerce business that will tackle price comparisons. And another, Laura Deming, who worked at a biogerontology lab at the age of 12, is trying to upend the way anti-aging research is financed.

“The fellows are a tremendous group of young people who are going to advance the frontiers of knowledge, shake up staid industries, and change the world,” Mr. Thiel said in a statement on Wednesday. “In order to solve vexing problems and increase the quality of life for people everywhere, the world’s economy needs continuous scientific and technical innovation from outstanding creative minds.”

The idea for 20 Under 20 started as a mere frustration for Mr. Thiel.

Disturbed by what he saw as a lack of innovation in society and the rising cost of college, Mr. Thiel, a Stanford graduate, declared a “great bubble” in higher education. Although he knew he couldn’t short the higher education market, he started to think of ways to move the dialogue forward and encourage students to find alternative paths. Investing in young, promising individuals is nothing new for Mr. Thiel, who was the first outside investor in Facebook, the social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg , a Harvard University dropout.

“I don’t think there’s anything controversial about an education bubble,” he said in a recent interview . “Price is up by a factor of 10; quality hasn’t really changed. There’s something really crazy going on here.

Solar Power Technology: Sunforce 50048 60Watt Solar Charging Kit

The educational solar kits require little power, however. They are small devices that would typically run on one or two AA batteries, but are instead powered by a solar panel. The benefit of using a solar panel instead of AA batteries is clear. Once the educational solar kits are assembled, they will never need a power supply because the solar panel will be able to provide the power needed by converting sunlight into electricity.

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