It sounds like a teenager's dream and a parent's nightmare.Peter Thiel, PayPal's co-founder, is paying 24 college-aged students $100,000 to just say no — to college.
For two years, winners of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship have focused on developing business ideas instead of heading to class.
The fellows will work in Silicon Valley with a network of more than 100 mentors where they "will pursue innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship and begin to build the technology companies of tomorrow," the press release states.
Two Canadians are among those selected.
Eden Full, a 19-year-old woman passionate about making solar power more affordable, is the founder of Roseicollis Technologies, an enterprise she began at the age of 15. Her SunSaluter, a solar-panel-rotation system, currently provides electricity for two small villages in Kenya.
Albertan Gary Kurek, also 19, has spent the last four years developing mobility aids. Inspired by his grandmother's battle with cancer, he built her a walker-wheelchair hybrid that adjusts to a user's moment-by-moment power needs and encourages strength restoration.
Students paid $100,000 not to go to college
