Astera Residency Cohort: Open Science for Public Goods (deadline 22 Nov)

Hi All

This might be of interest to some of you!
I’m not involved, just passing on the info (and h/t to Andrew Lamb for also suggesting sharing this with the GOSH Community)

Jenny


Applications are open for Astera’s first Residency cohort

Today, Astera is opening a call for its first major science residency program, a one-year, fully funded program centered on the creation of public goods. Over the course of the next 12 months, we expect to invite approximately 20 residents to join us in Emeryville, California, where we are building a hub for open science, data and technology. We will provide residents a salary of $125,000-$250,000, commensurate with experience, to explore an important problem of their choosing, along with the opportunity to pitch an additional budget for a team and other operational expenses; a chance to pitch us and others in our network for longer-term, larger-scale support; and access to substantial compute and programmatic resources (see details below).

We believe that openness is the key to faster, cheaper, and better innovation, and that many public goods with the potential to broadly increase human flourishing are systematically under-produced by government, academia, and markets. We want to help address these gaps by seeding and supporting a vibrant ecosystem of mission-driven, open projects that can catalyze further private- and public-sector advancements. We are looking for creative, high-agency scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who are passionate about reducing the barriers to progress within and across domains.

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Does anyone know anything about Astera Institute. It seems a huge amount of money (which is great) and I can’t find much information on the source of the income or who they really are?

Sounds like a very interesting opportunity for anyone who is able and willing to relocate to California.

I applied for their Open Science Fellowship (didn’t get it but close). They seem very nice (program officer at least) and their intentions seem good. I can’t speak to the actual who’s behind the money part.

I’d also be curious for anyone who engages how they feel about the program and organization as well!

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A staff person at Astera told me that Astera’s funding comes from the philanthropy of Jed McCaleb, an early crypto/dot com entrepreneur

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oh, interesting! Jed McCaleb is the co-founder of Mt Gox