This student requirement seems a bit weird, arbitrary, and makes me question their agenda. Are they doing this to truly support hot new startups, or are trying to to encourage some kind of academic accomplishment? I know lots of great founders who would love to apply, but have been out of school for a few years so they're ineligible? wtf. As far as I can see, the FAQ doesn't address what's up with the full-time student requirement thing.

I wonder if there's some tax benefit for them to have a student involved.

i would guess that this guarantees that they will have someone on a there team that is actually capable of building something. hobbyists are nice and often extremely capable, but the CS student qualification basically ensures that they aren't investing in a bunch of kids using iWeb.

edit: nevermind, ignore the comment below. I missed the fact that it's any 10 weeks within the 6/1 to 9/30 date range, so students on semester system are eligible too.

In addition to requiring full-time students, it disqualifies any students on the semester system since all winners are apparently required to work in their office from June 1st to September 30. Only students on quarter systems can meet that requirement, narrowing their applicant pool even farther.

Not true. It's any 10 weeks between June 1st and Sept 30. We did the program, and each took a couple weeks off for family vacation. The Lightspeed guys were totally cool with it.

Basically, de facto age discrimination.

Seems like it. Maybe they are specifically trying to connect with the younger crowd. As a VC, they're naturally going to skew toward the 30s and up crowd and this could be a counter measure.

Not necessarily. Graduate programs, especially PhD programs, generally have many "older" students. I've seen PhD students in their 40s with several kids.

But I'll agree that the requirement seems arbitrary without an explanation.

Yes, we're going to say those things, because we like to consider an issue from all sides, including the negative ones.

After we've done so, we'll make a decision on whether it's good or bad overall.

Gee, if only you were around when they were letting all the white kids go to better schools to help them out.

Yeah, this really sucks and doesn't make a lot of sense, especially given this:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/engineering-vs-liberal-arts...

They only require 1 person on the team to have a CS-degree. However, if you are a coder (and don't have a CS degree) - you should be fine.

It would be difficult to build a product over the summer if you didn't have someone on the engineering side on the team.

Is it only Electrical Engineers or all Engineers ?

    Must an engineer (CS or EE) be on the team? Does the engineer have to be a student?

EE stands for Electrical Engineer or does that encompass SE and CE as well ?

This should help clarify. You need one engineer, but they do not have to be a student.

· Each team must include at least one individual who was a student (graduate or undergraduate) in the 2010-2011 academic school year · At least ONE member of the team must have a degree in Computer Science or Engineering

EE is generally separate, and when I went to school 7 years ago, my college was just starting it's CE program, and didn't have an SE program.

Edit: Implying that they may not have an CE or SE program (didn't look)

hmmm. Where can I get my hands on some fresh students!