Dale J. Stephens

For other people named Dale Stephens, see Dale Stephens (disambiguation).

Dale Jasper Stephens is an entrepreneur, speaker^[1] and Hendrix College^[2] dropout who has received $100,000 from Peter Thiel's philanthropic venture 'Thiel Fellowship' in 2011.^[3] He is the founder of the UnCollege movement, whose goal is to help people extend their education beyond educational institutions, replacing four-year college with "life-wide learning."^[4]

Bio

Dale was unschooled, a self-directed learning philosophy similar to homeschooling.^[5] Looking for a more rounded educational experience, he studied abroad in France for six months, helped build a library in his hometown, and worked on political campaigns. At the age of 17, he became increasingly interested in technology start-ups, and during his senior year of “high school,” tweeted the founder of Zinch, and subsequently received a job from them. Dale matriculated to Hendrix College, Arkansas, USA at the age of 18, but he became increasingly frustrated with what he felt was a lack of seriousness about education at the college, and found that there needed to be a higher emphasis on learning, as well as a more direct application of knowledge in the real world. In December 2010 he applied for the Thiel Fellowship with an idea to start a low-cost transatlantic airline, Eutopia Airways. In January of 2011, he and his friends from college and unschooling devised the initial concept of UnCollege, and Dale quickly began marketing it to the general public. Upon seeing Dale’s work, the Thiel foundation, who had initially rejected his application, invited him to re-enter the contest if he used UnCollege as his idea as opposed to Eutopia Airways. Dale made the decision to drop out of Hendrix College and work on UnCollege full-time at the end of March upon coming into contact with the RadMatter team through the Gates Foundation, and left Hendrix for San Francisco in April of 2011.^[2] At the end of April, he was awarded the Thiel Fellowship and began traveling around the world to build and spread his new ideas on college education.

References

1. ^ Ellsberg, Michael. "The Coming Disruption: Teen Knowledge Work". Forbes. http://blogs.forbes.com/michaelellsberg/2011/05/10/teen-knowledge-work/. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "The University Has No Clothes". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/features/college-education-2011-5/. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 
3. ^ Wauters, Robin. "Young Entrepreneurs Rule – Meet Peter Thiel’s First “20 Under 20″ Thiel Fellows". TechCrunch. http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/25/young-entrepreneurs-rule-meet-peter-thiels-first-20-under-20-thiel-fellows/. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 
4. ^ UnCollege Getting Started page
5. ^ Kamenetz, Anya (25th May 2011). "Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses". FastCompany. http://www.fastcompany.com/1755089/legendary-investor-peter-thiel-names-dream-team-of-whiz-kids. Retrieved 25 May 2011. 

External links

• UnCollege.org
• Personal Homepage at DaleJStephens.com
• [1]

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