British Teenager Andrew Brackin Wins $100,000 Fellowship from PayPal’s Peter Thiel

Andrew Brackin, an 18-year old Londoner is one of the 20 young entrepreneurs awarded with a fellowship from Peter Thiel. Thiel, the creator of PayPal and a pioneer Facebook investor, is giving Brackin and the other awardees $100,000 or about £67,000. Brackin is the second person from the United Kingdom to win the Thiel Fellowship. Applicants were selected from thousands of applicants from 49 countries including the United States.

However, this offer of a lifetime has a catch. Brackin would need to move to San Francisco, California and work there to develop his tech idea. He must discontinue formal study for a couple of years, therefore skipping university.

Twenty under 20 program

Peter Thiel’s 20-under-20 program has been allotting a yearly fund for 20 talented teenagers from around the world to build a business and stop studying for a while. The $100,000 award is designed to cover the cost of setting up a business as well as living expenses. Billionaire Thiel has been very outspoken and critical of university education. Thiel, who also has investments in LinkedIn, Spotify, and Zynga has even declared that university education is a waste of money and time for certain students.

Andrew, who shares an alma mater with award-winning singer-songwriter Adele and the late Amy Winehouse agrees with this point of view. He said that people who go to university do not really think about what they do, that a degree is not necessarily needed if they want to reach their goals because there are other options.

Tough selection process

But Andrew does not seem to mind and even called the whole thing, “The Apprentice” on steroids. He said that the semi-finals involved an interview via Skype. The final selection involved a presentation to a panel from Silicon Valley. Brackin and the other finalists were all flown to San Francisco, California and had to present at the Yerba Buena Centre on stage without notes. This location is significant being the place where Steve Jobs himself presented the very first iPad to the world.

“Bunchy”

Andrew Brackin, one of the awardees of the third set of Thiel awardees, will use his prize to develop an online platform called “Bunchy.” This platform allows organizations such as charities to raise money through websites and social networking sites. Brackin’s “Bunchy” will also get much needed help from other Silicon Valley residents such as Yahoo, Facebook, and Google.

The Thiel Fellowship

The Thiel Fellowship was created two years ago in order to assist creative individuals and innovators pursuing technical and scientific projects. Thiel believes that these people can “learn and accomplish more than they might have otherwise” if they are given help to learn how to do business from the very foundations. He is proud of Thiel fellows who have proven that there are more important things than a degree in order to achieve success, as for instance qualities like determination, grit, and intellectual curiosity.

The past young Thiel awardees have collectively launched 30 new companies and have been launching new products, providing new jobs, and even providing advice to other technology companies.

Photo Credit: Peter Thiel