tl;dr: Pioneer winners now get $100,000 in Google Cloud credits, apply now!

Just a few days ago we announced the winners of our first Pioneer Tournament. In a few days, our second Tournament will be closing. Today, we’re excited to announce that the third December Tournament is now open!

Quick Primer

Pioneer’s mission is to scalably identify and nurture the creative outsiders of the world.

Traditional institutions like the Ivy League try to solve this problem by relying on a small set of individuals to screen thousands of applications. This doesn’t scale. And it leaves many geniuses (especially those from non-traditional backgrounds) undiscovered.

We’re trying something radically different. We’re trying to find these “Lost Einsteins” by building an online game. Fortnite, for productivity. Players are rewarded based on the progress they make on their project. Every month, we fund the best with a $1,000 grant and up to $100,000 in follow-on investment.

What’s New

During our second tournament, we added more leaderboards, improved our peer voting process, and worked on our selection algorithm. We also grew the grant size: the winning Pioneers get $6,000 in Stellar lumens, in addition to the cash grant of $1,000.

Like the iPhone, we hope to improve with every release. The December Tournament comes with an epic feature: $100,000 in Google Cloud credits via Google Cloud for Startups to the winning applicants. This is a big deal. Not all of our applicants need Cloud Credits, but many do. Stellar is re-joining us for the tournament as well. Winning applicants receive:

  • $1,000 in cash (check out our FAQ for more info about this).
  • $100,000 in Google Cloud credits.
  • $6,000 in Stellar lumens.
  • A potential $100,000 follow-on investment.
  • A ticket to Silicon Valley.
  • Mentorship from experts.

It’s the perfect package to kickstart a genius.

We believe the world has thousands -- maybe millions -- of ambitious people that have the talent and creativity and just need a nudge of support to unlock their potential. If you know someone who fits that bill (it could be you!), tell them to apply!

Applications close Sunday night. That's in five days. Get started here: https://pioneer.app.