Harvard Wants the Next Zuckerberg, Gates to Stay in School

Harvard University is sick and tired of university students going and making themselves crazy rich without ever actually getting a degree from the school. Which is why the company has announced the Experiment Fund, a company incubator available to those who stay in school.

The Experiment Fund would give 4-6 startups each year $250,000-$500,000 in financing to launch their company. It will focus on providing early-stage financing to companies in the Cambridge, Mass. area, presumably covering other top tech schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, otherwise known as MIT.

Modern tech leaders seem to have a habit of dropping out of school to start a company. Bill Gates famously did, back at the advent of personal computing. Steve Jobs did also, though that was more of a financial thing than that he was starting a company. Mark Zuckerberg, Dean Kamen, Larry Ellison and Michael Dell all dropped out of college prior to completion, largely to start their companies.

The Experment Fund could help keep future pioneers in school.

The experiment Fund is not run by Harvard, though Harvard supports it. The idea comes from Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who employed New Enterprise Associates to make it a reality. but they are hoping to do more than keep kids in school: they want to make the East Coast a center for technology development again. Says the NEA’s Patrick Chung,

“There has been an envy of the left coast, certainly. Now, these talented engineers don’t have to leave when they reach the boundaries of the university where the ideas are formed.”

Silicon Valley is a hotbed of technology companies, and, clearly, Harvard wants Cambridge to be one, too.

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