What is the exact definition of a Project in this context? Are fellows expected to produce an actual working solution or a concept or feasibility study?
In the jargon of our program, a project is an idea that can be brought to a prototying stage within 9-months by one or more fellows, often working collaboratively with other team members (i.e. students, professors, other industry partners). An ideal project will: • benefit from being “incubated” at Stanford and within Silicon Valley • be able to continue after the completion of the fellowship program • be able to grow or be replicated after a successful pilot Therefore, a project that is entirely focused on researching business models probably wouldn’t qualify. We want accepted Fellows to do something hands on, rather than just academic/theoretical. However, the problem of finding a viable business model for an open-source platform, for example, is very appropriate for our program. We encourage applicants to combine their research idea with an end product, something that Fellows could test out before leaving the program.
