Position type
‍Residency

Cohort size
‍5 fellows

Period
‍Winter 2025 Semester

Duration
January 2025 - April 2025

This is not for credit.

*This year, BLUE is an unpaid residency where select students will receive compensation in the form of exclusive access to top executives from MILA, Google Deepmind, Microsoft, The Government of Quebec, and other connections through the BLUE residency program.

We seek individuals who simultaneously engage with these priority points yet remain unconstrained in their approach.

‍Co-founder and CEO of 4ocean, Alex Schulze, has articulated to us four areas in the movement to clean up our oceans:

1. Waste collection:

How do we get plastic out of the ocean?

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2. Innovation in recycling plastic:

What do we do with it after?

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3. Global engagement & educational outreach:

Can we create a movement that cares about this?

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4. Environmental & species impact:

How do we motivate the movement?

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We are looking for individuals with technical proficiency and/or creative power for this program. We are open to all imaginings from different backgrounds and expertises.

In your application, please demonstrate how you will uniquely contribute to a multidisciplinary team of thinkers tasked with producing entirely new ways of looking at this complex problem. While disciplinary expertise is a bonus, we are looking to build a creative team that might uncover new perspectives, methodologies, and paradigms.

BLUE for Ocean Plastics (Winter 2025)

‍1. Part of the 2025 BLUE Residency cohort

2. Receive mentorship from the 4ocean team at the beginning, middle, and end stages of the project cycle.

3. Present the final iteration of the project internally at Building 21 and potentially, externally, with 4ocean.

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‍Function
Develop one’s personal, original, creative, and rigorous academic project in order to acquire the knowledge and skills to think beyond the acknowledged, the recognized, and the comfortable.

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Requirements
10 - 15 hours of physical presence at Building 21 per week across

• Doing research in the space
• Project check-ins
• Weekly Lightning sessions
• Training workshops
• Regularly scheduled talks and events

In-person presence at B21 leads to essential interdisciplinary connections and conversations.

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‍Responsibility
To cultivate a community of scholars aligned with the BLUE ethos, we ask you to:

• Talk to other scholars about your project
• Develop your project in the space
• Present your project with the community
• Share ideas and feedback with a group of interdisciplinary scholars
• As an aspect of the residency, students may be asked to participate in Building 21 initiatives or host scholar events

See: Our philosophy of education

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Showcase
Scholars will be asked to present their work to the community at the end of the residency in a project showcase.

Eligibility and Requirements

Community Guidelines