Singularity University
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Singularity Education Group (using the public names Singularity Group, Singularity University or SingularityU) is an American company that offers executive educational programs, a
business incubator Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture c ...
, and business consultancy services. Although the company uses the word "university" in its branding, it is not an accredited university and has no academic programs or accreditation. The company has faced allegations of sexual assault, embezzlement, and discrimination since its founding.


History


2008–2011 (non-profit)

Singularity was founded as a non-profit and initially offered an annual 10-week summer program called the Graduate Studies Program (GSP), it was aimed at individuals wanting to understand how they could use technology to tackle global challenges. Its original Corporate founding partners and sponsors included
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
,
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
,
Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...
,
IDEO IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, enviro ...
,
LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
, the X Prize Foundation, ePlanet Ventures, the Kauffman Foundation and Genentech. Google subsequently ended its grant of $1.5 million annually.


2012–present (private company)


2012

Singularity University began the process for conversion to a for-profit
benefit corporation In the United States, a benefit corporation (or in several jurisdictions including Delaware, a public-benefit corporation or PBC) is a type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 35 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, that includ ...
. In 2013, the new for-profit corporation incorporated as "Singularity Education Group" and acquired "Singularity University" as its
trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...
.


2018

Faculty leaders noted that the company was focused only on profit; "it's lost its soul...It’s become a moneymaking corporation."


2019

Singularity acquired ''Futurism News''. Singularity moved its headquarters from the
NASA Research Park NASA Research Park is a research park operated by NASA near San Jose, California, which is developing a shared-use research and development campus in association with government entities, academia, industry and nonprofit organizations. NASA Re ...
at NASA Ames to Santa Clara. Singularity added new Country Partner franchises in Brazil and Australia.


2021

Futurism.com was sold to Recurrent Ventures.


Executive Program

The Executive Program is a series of five-day training programs that focus on how topics relating to technology and its impacts on business.


Global Impact Competition

In 2016, SingularityU The Netherlands organized a Global Impact Competition for Dutch entrepreneurs. Danny Wagemans, a 21-year-old nanophysics student, won the first prize to participate in the 10-week Global Solutions Program. He demonstrated how clean water and energy can be derived from urine by combining a
microbial fuel cell Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a type of bioelectrochemical fuel cell system that generates electric current by diverting electrons produced from the microbial oxidation of reduced compounds (also known as fuel or electron donor) on the anode to oxid ...
and a
graphene Graphene () is an allotrope of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice nanostructure.
filter in a water bottle.


Singularity Hub

Singularity Hub is a science and tech media website published by Singularity University. Singularity Hub was founded in 2008 with the mission of "providing news coverage of sci/tech breakthroughs that are rapidly changing human abilities, health, and society". It was acquired by Singularity University in 2012, to make content produced by Singularity University more accessible. In March 2018, Singularity Hub released 695 articles via Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0.


SU Labs

SU Labs is a
seed accelerator Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often g ...
by Singularity University, targeting startups that aim to "change the lives of a billion people." In 2011, a Singularity University group launched Matternet, a startup that aims to harness drone technology to ship goods in developing countries that lack highway infrastructure. Other startups from SU are the peer-to-peer car-sharing service
Getaround Getaround is an online car sharing or peer-to-peer carsharing service that connects drivers who need to reserve cars with car owners who share their cars in exchange for payment. As of 2019, the company was reported to have five million users and ...
, and BioMine, which uses mining technologies to extract value from electronic waste.


Controversies

An investigative report from ''
Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...
'' found many issues with the organization, including an alleged sexual harassment of a student by a teacher, theft and aiding of theft by an executive, and allegations of gender and disability discrimination. Several early members of Singularity University were convicted of crimes, including Bruce Klein, who was convicted in 2012 of running a credit fraud operation in Alabama and
Naveen Jain Naveen K. Jain (; born September 6, 1959) is an Indian-American business executive, entrepreneur, and the founder and former CEO of InfoSpace. InfoSpace briefly became one of the largest internet companies in the American Northwest, before the ...
who was convicted of insider trading in 2003. In February 2021, during the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, ''
MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...
'' reported that a group owned by Singularity, called Abundance 360, had held a "mostly maskless" event in Santa Monica in violation of the local stay-at-home order that became a
superspreading event A superspreading event (SSEV) is an event in which an infectious disease is spread much more than usual, while an unusually contagious organism infected with a disease is known as a superspreader. In the context of a human-borne illness, a super ...
. The event, led by Singularity co-founder Peter Diamandis, charged up to $30,000 for tickets. In a followup article, ''MIT Technology Review'' revealed that after COVID-19 started spreading among attendees, Diamandis tried to sell them "fraudulent" treatments including inhaled
amniotic fluid The amniotic fluid is the protective liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a gravid amniote. This fluid serves as a cushion for the growing fetus, but also serves to facilitate the exchange of nutrients, water, and biochemical products betwee ...
and
ketamine Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic used medically for induction and maintenance of anesthesia. It is also used as a recreational drug. It is one of the safest anesthetics, as, in contrast with opiates, ether, and propofol, it suppresses ...
lozenges, which a professor of law and medicine at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
characterized as "quackery". The superspreading event was covered widely by publications including the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', and the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''.


References


External links

* {{Coord, 37.415229, -122.062650, type:edu_region:US-CA, display=title Educational organizations based in the United States Transhumanist organizations Benefit corporations