Betting early on exceptional people making the world better
Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that bets early on exceptional people making the world better. Our bets on AI are talent-first, focused on exceptional researchers and their teams as they work to solve hard problems in science and society. Some examples of our work follow below.
The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute
The Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute brings together a global network of scientists from academia and industry to create a new field of science at the intersection of biology and AI aimed at improving human health. Two recent revolutions inspired the creation of the Center: the exponential growth and widespread adaptation of data technologies like machine learning and cloud computing, and the dramatic advances in generating massive amounts of data about living systems through next-generation DNA sequencing, single cell genomics, and advanced medical imaging. The Schmidt Center represents Schmidt Futures’ largest philanthropic gift to date.
Learn moreAI Accelerator
AI Accelerator supports projects that use AI to advance research in topics ranging from the human brain to climate science to chemical discovery. For example, the Climate Modeling Alliance (CliMA) from Caltech, MIT, and the Naval Postgraduate School is building a new kind of climate model. Key to the design is the use of ML techniques to drive choices of submodels to produce appropriate parametrization for use in full-scale models. As another example, the nanostructure and catalysts project at the Institute of Protein Design at the University of Washington use AI to speed up computation of energy surfaces which enable design of proteins, including several potential COVID therapies.
Learn morePlaintext Group
Plaintext Group is a nonpartisan, technology policy initiative at Schmidt Futures. The initiative brings together both technologists and policy professionals to produce novel research insights into today's most important technology policy issues — filling a void of technical expertise that too often exists in policy decision making.
Learn moreRise
Rise is the flagship program of Schmidt Futures that finds brilliant people who need opportunity and supports them for life as they work to serve others. The program starts at ages 15–17 and offers access to benefits that last a lifetime including scholarships, mentorship, access to career development opportunities, funding, and more as Global Winners work toward solving humanity’s most pressing problems. An initiative of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, Rise is the anchor program of a $1 billion commitment from Eric and Wendy Schmidt to find and support global talent.
In its first year, Rise received tens of thousands of applications from more than 170 countries. The inaugural cohort of Rise Global Winners was announced in October 2021. Several Rise Global Winners used AI in their projects across many sectors, including healthcare.
Innovation Fellows
The Innovation Fellows program supports extraordinary mid-career individuals and teams with highly experimental ideas to leverage technology to solve important societal challenges. Two Innovation Fellows, Sendhil Mullainathan (University of Chicago) and Ziad Obermeyer (UC Berkeley) are building out the field of computational medicine. They founded Nightingale Open Science, which uses AI to detect signals that provide clues about health risks. This will help prevent the 300,000 deaths we see in the United States each year from sudden cardiac arrest with no prior warnings.
Learn moreVirtual Institutes
Schmidt Futures supports a number of virtual institutes of science that bring investigators from different institutions together virtually to solve important problems. Current virtual institutes focus on earth system modeling, astrophysics, and scientific software. The Virtual Earth System Research Institute (VESRI) has four significant projects. For example, the Multiscale Machine Learning In Coupled Earth System Modeling (M2LInES) focuses primarily on using machine learning to improve climate projections and reduce climate model errors. The Virtual Institute for Astrophysics (VIA) supports a project to create new software platforms to analyze large astronomical datasets generated by the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), for which machine learning is essential to handle such large amounts of data. The Virtual Institute for Scientific Software (VISS) will create several centers for writing professional grade software for scientists, for which ML experts will be central to those efforts.
Learn moreInternational Strategy Forum
The International Strategy Forum aims to forge an interdisciplinary network of rising leaders to strengthen progress and security amid technological innovation and a changing world order. The program bets early on the next generation of problem solvers with extraordinary potential in geopolitics, innovation, and public leadership.
Learn moreLearning Engineering Program
The Learning Engineering program aims to improve our fundamental understanding of how people learn and how we can customize teaching to increase student outcomes globally. The program recruits top computer science talent, creates partnerships between university researchers and owners of digital platforms, and scales the lessons from those partnerships to reach a growing number of students. One organization we support through the Learning Engineering program is TalkingPoints, a nonprofit led by Heejae Lim that uses AI to engage and communicate with the families of multilingual students. During the year 2020, TalkingPoints expanded its reach from 500,000 to over 3 million users, serving more than 100 million conversations, half of which were in a language other than English.
Learn moreThe Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute
The Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute brings together a global network of scientists from academia and industry to create a new field of science at the intersection of biology and AI aimed at improving human health. Two recent revolutions inspired the creation of the Center: the exponential growth and widespread adaptation of data technologies like machine learning and cloud computing, and the dramatic advances in generating massive amounts of data about living systems through next-generation DNA sequencing, single cell genomics, and advanced medical imaging. The Schmidt Center represents Schmidt Futures’ largest philanthropic gift to date.
Learn moreInnovation Fellows
The Innovation Fellows program supports extraordinary mid-career individuals and teams with highly experimental ideas to leverage technology to solve important societal challenges. Two Innovation Fellows, Sendhil Mullainathan (University of Chicago) and Ziad Obermeyer (UC Berkeley) are building out the field of computational medicine. They founded Nightingale Open Science, which uses AI to detect signals that provide clues about health risks. This will help prevent the 300,000 deaths we see in the United States each year from sudden cardiac arrest with no prior warnings.
Learn moreAI Accelerator
AI Accelerator supports projects that use AI to advance research in topics ranging from the human brain to climate science to chemical discovery. For example, the Climate Modeling Alliance (CliMA) from Caltech, MIT, and the Naval Postgraduate School is building a new kind of climate model. Key to the design is the use of ML techniques to drive choices of submodels to produce appropriate parametrization for use in full-scale models. As another example, the nanostructure and catalysts project at the Institute of Protein Design at the University of Washington use AI to speed up computation of energy surfaces which enable design of proteins, including several potential COVID therapies.
Learn moreVirtual Institutes
Schmidt Futures supports a number of virtual institutes of science that bring investigators from different institutions together virtually to solve important problems. Current virtual institutes focus on earth system modeling, astrophysics, and scientific software. The Virtual Earth System Research Institute (VESRI) has four significant projects. For example, the Multiscale Machine Learning In Coupled Earth System Modeling (M2LInES) focuses primarily on using machine learning to improve climate projections and reduce climate model errors. The Virtual Institute for Astrophysics (VIA) supports a project to create new software platforms to analyze large astronomical datasets generated by the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), for which machine learning is essential to handle such large amounts of data. The Virtual Institute for Scientific Software (VISS) will create several centers for writing professional grade software for scientists, for which ML experts will be central to those efforts.
Learn morePlaintext Group
Plaintext Group is a nonpartisan, technology policy initiative at Schmidt Futures. The initiative brings together both technologists and policy professionals to produce novel research insights into today's most important technology policy issues — filling a void of technical expertise that too often exists in policy decision making.
Learn moreInternational Strategy Forum
The International Strategy Forum aims to forge an interdisciplinary network of rising leaders to strengthen progress and security amid technological innovation and a changing world order. The program bets early on the next generation of problem solvers with extraordinary potential in geopolitics, innovation, and public leadership.
Learn moreRise
Rise is the flagship program of Schmidt Futures that finds brilliant people who need opportunity and supports them for life as they work to serve others. The program starts at ages 15–17 and offers access to benefits that last a lifetime including scholarships, mentorship, access to career development opportunities, funding, and more as Global Winners work toward solving humanity’s most pressing problems. An initiative of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, Rise is the anchor program of a $1 billion commitment from Eric and Wendy Schmidt to find and support global talent.
In its first year, Rise received tens of thousands of applications from more than 170 countries. The inaugural cohort of Rise Global Winners was announced in October 2021. Several Rise Global Winners used AI in their projects across many sectors, including healthcare.
Learning Engineering Program
The Learning Engineering program aims to improve our fundamental understanding of how people learn and how we can customize teaching to increase student outcomes globally. The program recruits top computer science talent, creates partnerships between university researchers and owners of digital platforms, and scales the lessons from those partnerships to reach a growing number of students. One organization we support through the Learning Engineering program is TalkingPoints, a nonprofit led by Heejae Lim that uses AI to engage and communicate with the families of multilingual students. During the year 2020, TalkingPoints expanded its reach from 500,000 to over 3 million users, serving more than 100 million conversations, half of which were in a language other than English.
Learn more
