Palace intrigue may dominate the news cycle surrounding OpenAI, but the AI startup — and its accelerator programs — is moving along, its PR team tells me.
OpenAI today announced the launch of Converge-2, the second cohort of its six-week Converge program for “outstanding engineers, designers, researchers and product developers who use All included to reimagine the world,” as the company describes it in a blog post published this morning.
As with members of OpenAI’s first Converge cohort, the 10-15 startups selected to participate in Converge-2 will receive a $1 million investment from the OpenAI Startup Fund, the $100 million venture tranche announced last May with support from Microsoft and other OpenAI partners. Do the math, and that’s at least a $10 million investment in the Converge-2 program — not a small chunk of change.
In addition to the capital, Converge-2 attendees will gain access to tech talks, office hours, social events and conversations with “leading practitioners” and the OpenAI “community of makers,” according to the blog post. Importantly, they won’t be forced to build on top of OpenAI’s APIs. OpenAI emphasizes that the program is “for anyone who builds or aspires to build with AI,” though one assumes that the network effects will make OpenAI’s technologies extremely attractive.
OpenAI encourages founders from all backgrounds, industries and experience levels to apply, including those based outside the US. No previous experience working with AI systems is required. But OpenAI I will require selected startups to commit at least four to six hours to the program per week from March 11 to April 19, with the first and last weeks of the program taking place in San Francisco (OpenAI will cover travel expenses.)
The application deadline is January 26.
