Nerd News: NASA and Google Start a University

Here's something new.  Blurb:

NASA and Google have teamed up with leading science and technology entrepreneurs to open Singular University (SU), a school devoted to fostering collaboration and innovation “in order to address humanity’s grand challenges.”

Housed on the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley, the university will open in June 2009 and offer a nine-week graduate level program along with several executive level programs aimed at helping current leaders adapt their businesses to up-and-coming technologies. SU’s founders include Pete Worden, the director of NASA Ames, Dr. Ray Kurzweil, distinguished author and futurist and Dr. Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation.

Besides its cool name, (which scientifically refers to the ultra-compressed center of a black hole, but in this case, a period of rapid technological progress) what makes SU different from other top institutions? Instead of seeking to become the forerunner of a single discipline, the university is looking to compliment {MM comments: that should be "complement"!} existing programs in a variety of subjects including biotechnology, AI, robotics, law, ethics and finance.