Are you able to deliver extra consciousness to your model? Take into account changing into a sponsor for The AI Influence Tour. Be taught extra in regards to the alternatives here.
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is opening the door to potential startup founders to use to obtain a $1 million funding enhance and unique informational and academic sources from its Startup Fund, in change for taking part in a most six-hour-per-week, six-week-long program. Even these with none prior AI expertise or who don’t even use OpenAI services and products can apply.
Final night time, OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman and CTO/former interim CEO Mira Murati posted a hyperlink on the social platform X (previously often called Twitter) to an OpenAI weblog put up asserting the launch of “Converge 2.”
This system is the second iteration of its sort from the OpenAI Startup Fund following an inaugural session of Converge that launched a yr in the past in December 2022. It invitations potential AI founder candidates from around the globe to use with solely a minimal quantity of details about themselves and their concepts on OpenAI’s web site to obtain funding, in addition to teaching and experience to information the formation and progress of their corporations.
After the appliance window closes, OpenAI’s Startup Fund will in the end select between 10 and 15 completely different corporations to fund, every to the tune of $1 million. Whereas that’s not that important in a time when most startups announce seed rounds within the multi-millions, it’s massively useful to these within the pre-seed and earliest phases of their ideation and company-building journeys.
How one can apply
Even for those who haven’t written a line of code or raised a single greenback and your thought continues to be largely in your head, OpenAI needs to listen to from you, in accordance with its bare-bones on-line utility kind.
Candidates simply want to offer their identify, a one-line description of their firm, hyperlinks to social profiles of founder candidates, and a hyperlink to a 30-second lengthy video pitching the thought.
Importantly, OpenAI additionally will not be mandating that candidates use, nor decide to utilizing, OpenAI’s utility programming interfaces (APIs) for its hit merchandise GPT-3.5/4, ChatGPT Plus/Enterprise, Codex, DALL-E.
In actual fact, on the Converge 2 announcement webpage, OpenAI particularly addresses this query as a part of an FAQ (continuously requested questions), asking “Does my present or future product must be constructed on high of OpenAI’s APIs?” and answering, “No. This system is for anybody constructing (or aspiring to construct) on cutting-edge AI fashions.”
The applying window is open now by January 26, 2024. Merely fill out the shape online here.
What Converge 2 provides potential startup founders
This system itself will run from March 11 to April 19, 2024. Whereas the dedication is about at 4-6 hours per week, it may be finished remotely, with solely the primary and final weeks of this system structured as in-person occasions in San Francisco, with journey prices lined by OpenAI.
The intermediate weeks provide flexibility for distant participation, though in-person attendance is very advisable.
The six-week program is structured to supply a studying and growth expertise. Members will have interaction in tech talks, workplace hours and social occasions. They’ll even have the chance to work together with main AI practitioners and startup founders, gaining insights into essentially the most urgent alternatives and challenges of AI growth.
Considerably, prior expertise with AI programs will not be a prerequisite, opening this system to a broader vary of innovators.
This method aligns with OpenAI’s imaginative and prescient of selling variety within the AI area, particularly encouraging founders from underrepresented backgrounds and people based mostly exterior america.
Reflecting a dedication to variety and inclusivity, Converge 2 encourages purposes from founders of all backgrounds.