History & Founding

Founders Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil

Singularity University was jointly founded by Dr. Peter H. Diamandis and Dr. Ray Kurzweil. The concept of Singularity University was proposed by Diamandis to Kurzweil and to International Space University colleagues Drs. Robert D. Richards and Michael Simpson in mid-2007.

An exploratory meeting was held at NASA Ames in November 2007, followed in September 2008 by a Founding meeting also hosted at NASA Ames. Diamandis was inspired to apply the interdisciplinary, international and inter-cultural principals originally pioneered by the International Space University. The idea for SU came to Diamandis while reading Kurzweil’s seminal book The Singularity is Near while trekking in Chile in January 2007.

Co-Founders Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis at the closing ceremonies for the inaugural Graduate Studies Program in 2009

Founding Meetings

A small group of volunteers helped to architect the September 2008 Founding meeting and invite the 100 participants that helped launch the University. The University is forever grateful for their hard work.

Founding Architects Susan Fonseca-Klein & Bruce Klein

Susan and Bruce were instrumental in organizing the founding conference that led to the creation of SU. From that and right through SU’s first year, they contributed countless hours in all aspects of SU including faculty appointments, curriculum development, student selection, logistics and team building.

Key Supporters

Also extremely important in the creation of SU were Christopher Boshuizen, William Marshall and Amara Angelica, who contributed heavily on a part-time basis from their roles at NASA and KurzweilAI, respectively.

Host

We are also thankful for the leadership of Dr. Pete Worden and his colleagues at NASA Ames for hosting both our Foundation meeting and the ongoing work of the Graduate Student Programs and our Executive Programs.

Associate Founders

The following group of twelve individuals each provided a donation of $100,000 (or more) as the seed capital used to create Singularity University. We are grateful for their guidance and help. This group includes: