It is well known that many adults flock to the Silicon Valley for tech jobs but a new group of people has decided to join. Kids and young adults are also taking the trip Silicon Valley in hopes of more knowledge on the fast growing tech industry and opportunities for their ideas to flourish. They come with high hopes that their ideas will make them the next Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs.
One way to acquire this success is to pitch their ideas to venture capitalist in hopes of getting their startups off the ground. In 2014, venture capitalist spent 48.3 billion dollars investing in innovative technologies. There is no wonder why startup companies are a dime a dozen here. The companies receive a lot of support and resources from venture capitalist who are looking for the next best thing, with many of these companies consisting of young and hungry adults with new innovative ideas, it’s an ideal situation. The odds are in their favor more than anywhere else leaving them with high hopes they’ll be given an opportunity to launch their companies.
Another way for young adults in Silicon Valley to attain knowledge and opportunity in the tech industry is by joining Make school. Make is two years, located in downtown San Francisco and is even a startup company itself that focuses in technology product development. It’s an alternative to college that is sponsored by venture capitalist hoping to gain money because students do not pay up front for tuition but rather, with the earning they’ll receive off the inventions the students make at the school. Founded in 2012, they’ve taught over 2,000 students through in person classes and over 1.5 million through online courses. Their students consist of bright young individuals who have turned down places like MIT and Stanford. They decided to attend Make to get a different approach to education through creating instead of studying. Make School has lectured at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and INSEAD. The San Jose Mercury news even said “I see a day when the traditional four year college degree will be replaced…which is where [Make School] comes in”. This new approach to college could be the next best thing and a startups dream.
Lastly, places like Berkley are holding Hackathons were youth, mostly in high school spend 36 hours straight racing to engineer the next best computer based products from scratch. The events are funded by corporate sponsors in hopes to add some of the ideas produced to their companies. The event is ideal for Silicon Valley recruiters (i.e. Microsoft) because they offer jobs to these kids with the best products. While the kids will get a chance to work with the newest technology and showcase their talent in hopes of getting a job at the best tech companies. They will get to work with next generation technology to create innovative ideas that will propel us into the future of technology.