JumpStartFund, a crowd-powered startup, today announced that Dr. Marco Villa, former director of mission operations, SpaceX, and Dr. Patricia Galloway, first woman President of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), will lead and manage the Hyperloop project, an Elon Musk concept that was posted on its crowd-powered portal in August 2013. Equally, JumpStartFund is now accepting applications through its platform (apply in the “Participate” section) from JumpStartFund members who wish to work fulltime on the project in exchange for equity.
I believe this project will revolutionize how transportation will be viewed for future travel to and from major cities similar to the way the Concorde almost changed air travel
After its initial posting on JumpStartFund, and after 28 days of voting, commenting and vetting by the JumpStartFund community, a new company will be created to bring the Hyperloop project to life. The Villa/Galloway duo will be calling on JumpStartFund members to participate in different advisory groups to collaborate on every aspect of moving the Hyperloop concept forward – from design and feasibility, to solving technical challenges and creating a team surrounding its development.
There does not seem to be any technical issues on this project that we can’t solve, even if we do not know right away, we will figure it out,” said Dr. Marco Villa. “Hyperloop is a very complex system and we look forward to receiving input and support from all the brilliant minds out there in the JumpStartFund community to make this a true open source development.
I believe this project will revolutionize how transportation will be viewed for future travel to and from major cities similar to the way the Concorde almost changed air travel,” said Dr. Patricia Galloway. “What is different today is the opportunities that crowdsourcing and crowdfunding offers in getting dreams and innovations off the ground to allow the ‘Concordes’ of the future become reality today.
A lot of people talk about why this project will never work and how difficult it is to realize,” said Dirk Ahlborn, CEO and co-founder of JumpStartFund. “We are honored to have Dr. Villa and Dr. Galloway on board to lead our community, and their involvement goes a long way to proving that our platform’s processes, along with our community, can actually bring mega projects to life, such as Hyperloop.
