OpenAI opens $34K stipend program to diversify AI

OpenAI just opened applications for the third round of its Scholars program, a concentrated effort to pull more underrepresented voices into deep learning. The setup is straightforward: eight people get four months, a generous $8,500 monthly stipend, and a dedicated mentor to guide them from software engineering into building and open-sourcing a real machine learning project. That’s $34,000 in total stipend money, plus a $25,000 slug of Azure credits from Microsoft to cover compute costs.

Larissa Schiavo, who runs the program, framed it bluntly when the second cohort wrapped up last year. “Diversity is core to AI having a positive effect on the world—it’s necessary to ensure the advanced AI systems in the future are built to benefit everyone,” she said. The program doesn’t demand a PhD. Many OpenAI staffers don’t have one, and the application explicitly calls that assumption a myth. What they do want is solid engineering chops — at least two years writing software — and comfort with Python. No machine learning background required.

The remote structure, limited to people with US work authorization in US time zones, is practical but revealing. It reflects the messy reality of immigration law rather than any geographic idealism. Scholars who happen to be near San Francisco can grab a desk at the OpenAI office, something past participants found genuinely useful for the informal collisions that remote Slack channels can’t quite replicate.

Mentorship is the actual engine here. Each scholar gets weekly one-on-one video calls with an OpenAI researcher who helps design a project meant to stretch their abilities. The selection criteria emphasize self-direction and community leadership, not just raw technical skill. The goal isn’t just to train eight individuals — it’s to create a cohort of people who will document their learning publicly and pull others into the field. Whether a four-month sprint can genuinely shift representation numbers across the industry is an open question, but $34,000 and a direct line to some of the best researchers in the world is a serious commitment, not a gesture.