Sunday, January 24, 2010

How to not work in a lab yet stay in the Science field and not working for someone but for yourself?

Fund ScienceI know, I know. Whenever scientists talk about this, it is always something like "work for a bio-tech and become a sales manager" or "become a field engineer and show how protein purification is done" or "become a technical support at some chemical company" etc etc etc

If you notice the sub-title of this blog (I don't know how long it will stay this way, so I am going to write it here in case it changes in the future

Lab My Life | An Internet Entrepreneur Wannabe

Yes, it's all about being an entrepreneur. So, here is a story about someone I know and how he is (was) working on eventually stop working in a lab.

I have known him for quite long time and we met occasionally at parties here and there. So it was a nice surprise to meet him one day I was on my way to school last year (I was still finishing up part-time MBA classes). He had no idea I was pursuing MBA and the conversation lead to an interesting topic.

"Yea, I got accepted into MBA program too but I decided not to go for it and instead started a non-profit organization" he told me

"What kind of organization is that?" I asked

"It's little bit like Kiva but for Science. The idea is to fund young scientists (with interesting ideas) by connecting them with the general public" he replied.

"Wow" I thought that was a great idea.

he continued to explain about what the organization does and who is on board so far at that stage.

"So why did you start it" I asked.

"You know, the idea is to be able to travel around the world and have a great job and still getting paid" he answered.

He had figured out a perfect solution!!

1) The idea helps people to solve a problem
2) Still relevant to what he does (Science)
3) Becoming an entrepreneur
4) Be where he wants and do what he wants
5) Doing all these and still get paid

So who is this guy? He is David Vitrant founder of FundScience.org  



At the time he started the organization, he was still a PhD student. You have all my respect David.