Internet Research Incubator offers UCLA undergraduates $15,000 prizes

Mar 29, 2016

By UCLA Samueli Newsroom

Calling all UCLA undergraduates: the Internet Research Incubator offers you a year-long research opportunity and $15,000.

The newly established Internet Research Incubator will provide up to 12 UCLA undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue revolutionary, interdisciplinary research on the topic of the Internet.

Students can conduct research through experiment, design, or social inquiry and analysis. The goals of the research should be to gain more knowledge about or contribute to the development of the Internet.

The incubator is open to all non-graduating UCLA undergraduates across campus. Awardees will be provided prize money, lab space, mentoring with faculty and outside experts, and a collaborative environment with fellow awardees. The inaugural awards will fund research to take place in the 2016-17 academic year, including a final presentation of findings.

Awardees will receive a prize of $15,000, distributed during the academic year. This will help free up students who might otherwise have to work part-time so they can conduct focused research.

“For those of you who have generated great ideas for the Internet, but have no way to realize them, we are offering this wonderful opportunity,” said Leonard Kleinrock, distinguished professor of computer science and one of the founding fathers of the Internet. “It’s most likely that what you are missing to bring your ideas to fruition is a lack of funding, no lab space, no faculty or expert mentoring, and no peer group to interact with and with whom to share your ideas. Bring us your most exciting, passionate ideas for moving this field forward and we will help you in an unfettered way to move them forward.”

UCLA freshmen, sophomores and juniors can find out more about the Internet Research Incubator, including how to apply, at the website: http://www.iri.ucla.edu/

The prize is made possible with generous seed support from UCLA alumnus Venky Harinarayan MS ’90, and is based in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA.

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