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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, and business consultancy services.[1][2] Although the company uses the word "university" in its branding, it is not an accredited university and has no academic programs or accreditation.
 | |
| Industry | Education |
|---|---|
| Founder | Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara, California |
| Brands | Singularity University, SingularityU, SU Ventures, Futurism News (formerly), Uncommon Partners Labs |
Number of employees | <250 |
| Website | www |
The company has faced allegations of sexual assault, embezzlement, and discrimination since its founding.[3]
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.[4] Its original Corporate founding partners and sponsors included Google,[5] Nokia,[6][7] Autodesk,[8][9] IDEO,[citation needed] LinkedIn,[citation needed] the X Prize Foundation, ePlanet Ventures,[10] the Kauffman Foundation and Genentech.[11] Google subsequently ended its grant of $1.5 million annually.[12]
Singularity University began the process for conversion to a for-profit benefit corporation.[13] In 2013, the new for-profit corporation incorporated as "Singularity Education Group" and acquired "Singularity University" as its trade name.[14] In 2018, faculty leaders noted that the company was focused only on profit; "it's lost its soul...It’s become a moneymaking corporation."[15] The next year, it acquired Futurism News,[16] moved the headquarters from the NASA Research Park at NASA Ames to Santa Clara, California,[17] and added new Country Partner franchises in Brazil and Australia.[18][19] Futurism News was later sold in 2021 to Recurrent Ventures.[20][21] The following year, Pioneer Adaptive Learning Platform was acquired by Talespin.[22][23]
The Executive Program is a series of five-day training programs that focus on how topics relating to technology and its impacts on business.[24][25]
Global Impact Competition
In 2016, SingularityU The Netherlands organized a Global Impact Competition for Dutch entrepreneurs.[26] 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 and a graphene filter in a water bottle.[27]
Singularity Hub is a science and tech media website published by Singularity University.[28] Singularity Hub was founded in 2008[28] with the mission of "providing news coverage of sci/tech breakthroughs that are rapidly changing human abilities, health, and society".[29] It was acquired by Singularity University in 2012, to make content produced by Singularity University more accessible.[29]
In March 2018, Singularity Hub released 695 articles via Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0.[citation needed][30]
SU Labs is a seed accelerator by Singularity University, targeting startups that aim to "change the lives of a billion people."[31]
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, and BioMine, which uses mining technologies to extract value from electronic waste.[32]
An investigative report from Bloomberg Businessweek 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.[12] 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, who was convicted of insider trading in 2003.[12]
In February 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, MIT Technology Review 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.[33] 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 and ketamine lozenges, which a professor of law and medicine at Stanford University characterized as "quackery".[34] The superspreading event was covered widely by publications including the New York Times,[35] the Washington Post,[36] and the Los Angeles Times.[37]
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