Vincis June 20 2012 Agenda Vision Corporate Summary Our organization The Team Partnerships Courses and Activities The Market Competition Size and growth Demographics Barriers to entry ID: 369150
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Slide1
Training “Thousands of da
Vincis
”
June
20,
2012Slide2
Agenda:
Vision
Corporate Summary
Our organization
The Team
Partnerships
Courses and Activities
The
Market
Competition
Size
and
growth
Demographics
Barriers to entry
Financials
Current
and projected
budget
Ideal
fundraising
round
SummarySlide3
Vision
1.
Train
an unprecedented number of interdisciplinary leaders.
2. Guide them as they change society.
Mission
: To promote a second Renaissance in the arts, sciences, and humanities and to unlock and reaffirm the full creative and intellectual potential of the individual by providing capable students with an advanced interdisciplinary education, training an unprecedented number of polymaths.Slide4
Corporate Summary
Industry:
Education
Type:
501(c)(3) charity (open to changing)Founded: March 2008Location: NYC, Providence, Cleveland, VirtualFounders: 4Mission: Start a school to train an unprecedented number of polymaths.Advantages: Unique educational model (no majors), obvious student outcomes (students improve the world even before graduating), extensive student support, “incubator” mindset -> unique revenue stream.Defensibility: High reaccreditation barrier for established institutions. Success based on unique metrics. No similar leadership program in place, existing schools too invested.Customers:
Undergraduate and graduate students, faculty.Revenue sources: Tuition, endowments, grants, equity in student-led companies.Barriers to entry: Regional accreditation, establishment of degree programs.Stage: ~1,000 online students on our course portal. Establishing a geographic presence in Q3-Q4 2012.Slide5
The Team
Michael Barnathan, Founding Director
Michael holds a Ph
. D. in Computer and Information Sciences from Temple University, specializing in machine learning with applications to
artificial intelligence in medicine. He also has an extensive industry background in data science and software engineering, including a Senior Software Engineer position at Google. As
a former Adjunct Professor and School of Science Advisory Council member at Monmouth University, Michael has hands-on teaching experience with courses such as Data Structures and Algorithms, Java Development, and Web Design. In addition to providing guidance towards the Polymath Foundation’s vision and satisfying the organization’s information technology needs, Michael oversees the foundation’s course development and academic affairs.michael@projectpolymath.orgJames Norris, DirectorJames Norris is a social entrepreneur who specializes in social change, emotional intelligence, time management, and personal development. He graduated with a triple major/quadruple minor from the University of Texas at Austin and is the organizer and host of our highly successful Polymath Juntos
.james@projectpolymath.orgKristi Attwood, DirectorKristi Attwood joined Project Polymath from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and has been a key contributor to our strategic planning and market research.
She
also runs a charity known as Made To Serve, which provides food, shelter, and aid for the needy in the Kansas City area.
kristi@projectpolymath.org
(J Craig Venter)
Laban Johnson, Director
Laban Johnson has
an extensive marketing background, and is responsible for many of the foundation's PR and marketing decisions, including how to invest our Google
Grant.
He has diverse industry and entrepreneurial experience, and currently writes for Yahoo!
laban@projectpolymath.orgSlide6
Partnerships
Dell Hines, Founder of Axiom Capital
Dell is the founder and managing director of Axiom Capital, a firm with $120 million of capital under management, as well as the Treasurer of the Brain Sciences Foundation. The Polymath Foundation is working with Dell and Axiom to launch the Brain Sciences Summit: a multidisciplinary gathering of the world’s leading neuroscientists, psychologists, computational biologists, and artificial intelligence researchers with a focus on curing currently intractable diseases of the brain and nervous system. The summit is taking place on Brown University’s campus in the summer of 2012, with a longer-term collaboration to follow.
Jeff Peace, Founder of Halcyon Charities
Halcyon Charities is a debt-free 501(c)(3) organization based in Cleveland, Ohio with a large amount of real-estate under management, including the Cleveland West Side Community Center and the Halcyon Masonic Lodge. They additionally have strong ties to Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, and Harman-
Kardon, Inc. Halcyon has offered us a large amount of classroom space as well as access to their partner institutions, from which we can launch industry collaborations and source faculty and students.
Google GrantGoogle has granted us $10,000/month in free AdWords advertising. We are currently utilizing 35% of this grant for promoting organizational outreach and the remaining 65% for promoting our course offerings. The AdWords grant also comes with analytics which allow us to derive insights about online course popularity.Slide7
Courses and Student Body
1034 registered students, 68% from the USA (next slide).
Current courses:
How to Create Your Own
Website.
Data Structures and Algorithms.Introduction to the Creative Economy.Code Like a Rockstar.Brain Sciences Foundation workshops (Providence, RI):Building a Brain-Computer Interface.Functional Neuroimaging and Digital Diagnosis.Simulating a Brain – How close are we?Upcoming courses: Illusions of Control.Interdisciplinary Critical Thinking.Human Factors and Functional Aesthetics.Talks:How to Learn Everything: Learning Skills for Becoming a21st Century Renaissance Person.Replacing the Radiologist: Popular and Actual Concepts in Artificial Intelligence (NYC).Slide8
Students by Country
1034 TotalSlide9
Existing Non-Course Activities
Polymath Conversations /
Junto
:
Biweekly Mastermind group: bring together polymathic individuals to share their ideas, challenges, endeavors, and progress.
Modeled on Benjamin Franklin’s 1727 “Club for Mutual Improvement”.Highly successful for us and the participants:Precipitated the Brain Sciences Foundation partnership.Large amount of feedback from students and faculty.Made many valuable and well-connected contacts.Polymath Survey: bottom-up market research on student demographics and interests, 52 Responses in 30 days.Polymath Columns/EssaysFundraising: >$2,000 in public donations.Causes (>1100 registered supporters)Facebook page (>300 supporters, even after Facebook wipe).Brain Sciences Foundation SummitPolymath Summit in Cleveland:A planned conference and problem-solving gathering themed around an interdisciplinary “grand challenge”.Experts from a variety of fields and backgrounds.Trying to recruit J. Craig Venter as the keynote speaker.Will partner with Halcyon Charities for space and access to academic resources.Slide10
Markets
Undergraduates
Expected majority of our students
Most between 17 and 24 years old.
High
school graduates who seek a school that will accommodate their individual pace and purpose.Other exceptionally talented students, demonstrated by significant accomplishments or high test scores.Past accomplishment, purpose/drive, and fit are the primary acceptance criteria.We have a self-assessed “Is Polymath a fit for you?” instrument to help students decide.Graduate StudentsExpected to be a sizable minority of our students.Real-world accomplishment or strong potential for it are expected.Alumni may sit in on courses for free so long as space is available (students have preference).Faculty
Most between 27 and 80 years old.Must love teaching: considered as important as research.Opportunities for faculty members to develop increasingly inspiring and stimulating teaching methods, further their communication skills, and make a difference in each student’s life individually and uniquely.Slide11
Competition
Soka
Liberal
arts college (est. 2001) which
emphasizes contributive
, prosocial leadership. Concentrates two or three studies together to form semi-interdisciplinary departments.Unranked.OlinEngineering college (est. 1997, first class 2002)Strong interdisciplinary component, primarily exercised through industry collaborations.Consistently ranks in the top 20 by Princeton Review and US News despite its youth.
Harvey MuddSTEM college (est. 1955). Strong emphasis on the general education component of its curriculum, both in and outside of the sciences.Consistently ranks as one of the strongest undergraduate colleges in the sciences.Slide12
Brick and mortar
schools:
Local market.
Very different (and very inflexible) model.
Hard for them to pivot.Khan Academy/Singularity University:
Online courseware – competes with our bootstrapping strategy, not our vision.They do not intend to become actual schools.Coursera, Stanford/MIT online programs:Closest competitor: courses from actual schools.No integration, no projects, no creativity offerings.Good coverage of engineering but missing a wide swath of subjects.The Minerva Project:Just starting up, distant competitor. No traction yet, team is weak at the moment.Goal: full online (traditional) degree programs.We have already contacted them and plan to collaborate at a later stage, once they have a strong team in place.Our Philosophy: We are actively working to build mutually beneficial relationships with other universities, rather than focusing on competing with them. © Royalty-Free/CorbisCompetitionSlide13
Comparison
Polymath Institute
Olin College
Soka
University
Harvey MuddTuition annual cost$13,125 (year 1)$32,812 (est.)$40,000[3]$27,214[2]$42,140[1]Room/board
annual costEstimated $12,000, depending on area$14,500[3]$10,628[2]$13,858[1]Curriculum Focus
Multiple
and Interdisciplinary
Engineering
Liberal
Arts
Science, Engineering,
and Mathematics
Location
Online, then Providence, Cleveland, or NYC
Needham,
MA
Aliso
Viejo, CA
Claremont,
CA
Leadership Training?
Yes, students choose and manage their projects.
No, SCOPE students are strictly workers.
Yes, through volunteer
/ study abroad.
No, Clinic students are strictly contractors.
Integrative?
Yes, cross-cutting approach unified by
student
projects.
Concentrates two or three studies together to form semi-interdisciplinary departments.
No, lacking study in the sciences and even the capstone is
unidisciplinary.
No, traditional departmental model.
Project
Driven?
Yes, a customizable
student-designed approach guides the entire curriculum.
Yes, through its SCOPE program: many students
do projects
driven by academic and industrial needs.
No,
traditional model.
Limited, through its Clinic
capstone program: the college contracts teams of students out to companies for ~$40,000 (the students are not paid).
1
http
://
www.hmc.edu/admission1/costsandaid.html
2
http://
www.soka.edu/admission_aid/tuition_and_fees.aspx
3
http
://
www.olin.edu/admission/costs.aspxSlide14
The Market (USA)
As of 2010, the USA has a total of 14.6 million students enrolled full-time in higher education (source: US Census Bureau). 14.6 million* average yearly tuition of $21,189 for a 4-year college = rounded to $309 billion
14% of students interested in multi-disciplinary studies
(12% of bachelors degree students overall, and 16% of students at 4-year nonprofit colleges in 2009 chose >1 major, and the number is increasing. Source: Department of Education study)
We
expect to eventually capture approximately 15% of the local market (students in the New York area with an interest in interdisciplinary studies).Slide15
Revenue Streams
Tuition
Incubator
Grants
$246 million/year:
7,500 students.$32,812/year per student.Research program prerequisite.
Eventual endowment into the billions.Portion of faculty grants (~$250 million)AlumniDonations a minor and inconsistent source of additional revenue.
$66 million/year:
7,500 students.
10
%
turn their projects into businesses.
E[net worth]: $1.76 million per business
1
.
5
% equity
stake in each.
1
Computed as
using Census/IRS data
at
http://
www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0755.xls
and
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/00co05nr.xls
Slide16
Primary Expenses
Personnel
Equipment
Scholarships
$40 million/year:
~100 staff~250 faculty (30:1)~25 administrators$60,000/year per staff(salary
+ benefits)$120,000/year per faculty$175,000/year per administrator$45 million/year (tax free):$6,000/student-year average
$54 million/year:
200 classrooms ($80,000 each)
100 collaborative spaces (…)
250 offices ($40,000 each)
4 buildings ($5 million each)Slide17
Progress (Past)Slide18
Progress (Future)Slide19
Near Future Plans
Brain Sciences Collaboration: June – August 2012.
“Building a Brain Computer Interface”
“Machine Learning and Functional Neuroimaging”
“Simulating the Brain – How Close are We?”
Polymath Summit: Planned for Summer of 2013.Oriented around an interdisciplinary “grand challenge”; e.g. “turn the insights from the cancer genome atlas into targeted treatments”.Bring together intellectuals in variety of fields to collaborate and work on problem-solving.Lead to longer-term networking, projects, and connections: we’ve committed space in Cleveland to hosting these collaborations.Recruit inaugural class: Target is 2015.Ramp up courses and talks:BSF Workshops: June 25 – 28, 2012 Instructor: Michael BarnathanComputational Intuition: June 27, 2012 Instructor: Michael BarnathanEducation and Creativity: Fall 2012 Instructor: Vahram DiehlDiscrete Mathematics: Fall 2012 Instructor: Bill ShillitoTech. Entrepreneurship: Winter 2012 Instructor: Jacob WaySlide20
Financial ProjectionsSlide21
Fundraising
It will cost about $2.5 million to build out our first class.
Major investment 2014-2015, return expected 2018-2019.
Use Cleveland and Providence space provided by our partners until 2017, then a campus as we outgrow it.
Mostly operational expenses:
PayrollFacilitiesStudent HousingImportantly, this will also get our research program started.This makes us eligible for research grants and endowment funding.It greatly increases the prestige of the institution.Ideal investment: $5 millionSlide22
Summary
Goals:
Give students an education which unlocks their full potential.
Train polymaths on a large scale and ignite a Renaissance.
Curriculum:
Ambitious project-based focus built on student goals.Real-world projects are inherently interdisciplinary.Projects dictate courses, research, etc.A college that is also a startup incubator!Leadership training and advisingStartups grow naturally from projects, and we incubate them and support their growth.Revenue stream built around success of student-led companies.Measuring Success:Tests are a proxy, not an end metric.Evaluate a student’s contribution to the world by the quality of his creative output!Students act as creators, and their creations advance society even before they graduate.Degree value is self-evident: the world would recognize projects even without the degree.This will grant the university significant standing.