Today, in the first interview of Disrupt 2020, Human Capital’s Baris Akis and investor Michael Ovitz announced the winners of its Delta Fellowship program.
Human Capital launched in 2016 with a mission to become a talent agency for engineers in the same way that CAA, founded by Michael Ovitz, was a talent agency for entertainers.
Human Capital helps engineers find great positions at great companies, and fosters their careers well beyond that, including helping them switch jobs, ask for raises and promotions, and more. Human Capital also has an investment arm that seeds these same entrepreneurs with funding when they’re ready to start on their own project.
The fellowship program is an extension of Human Capital’s commitment to people over metrics, explained Michael Ovitz, who invested in the company earlier this year. Sixteen fellows were selected from more than 1,300 applications across 20 countries and more than 200 universities.
Interestingly, the Delta fellowship application process did not include a request for a business proposal, but rather evaluated the people themselves.
“We’re here to partner with founders,” said Akis. “We get to know the people behind the ideas. We consider ideas in the context of the people driving them.”
Delta Fellows include:
● Abu Qader, a Cornell junior who developed a low-cost mammography tumor detection platform after seeing the challenges of healthcare firsthand in Afghanistan as a teenager
● Katie Mishra, a Stanford junior who published three books by the time she was 16 and started a nonprofit to teach middle schoolers the design, logic, and engineering behind computer science
● Eeshan Tripathii, an MIT sophomore who built a prototype for a low-cost ductless air filtration system and reverse engineered a $20,000 prosthetic glove into a $550 working prototype
Ovitz and Akis walked us through the details of the fellowship program in an interview today, which you can watch from start to finish below.
Disrupt 2020 officially kicks off tomorrow at 9 am PT and there’s still plenty of time to register for a pass. Speakers include Dropbox’s Drew Houston, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Doudna, Roelof Botha and Kevin Hart. See you there!
