Brilliant.org, also known as Brilliant, is a website and associated community that features problems in mathematics, physics, quantitative finance, and computer science intended to discover and hone the talents of intellectually gifted school students around the world.
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History
Brilliant.org grew out of another project called Alltuition. Sue Khim founded Alltuition, a website that helped students navigate the plethora of options for scholarships and financial aid for college tuition and living expenses. Within a few months of beginning it, the team realized that Brilliant.org, a side project of the company, had higher potential, so they switched focus to Brilliant. At the Launch Festival in March 2013, Khim presented the idea of Brilliant and it caught the fancy of venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya. In August 2013, TechCrunch reported that Brilliant.org had raised money from Palihapitiya's Social+Capital Partnership as well as from 500 Startups, Kapor Capital, Learn Capital, and Hyde Park Angels, and that the website had over 100,000 users. As of November 2014, the website has over 1.4 million Facebook likes.
Reception
Brilliant.org has been noted in a number of publications for its success at identifying talented individuals around the world, many of whom would not have been identified or given a chance to develop to their full potential otherwise. Commonly cited examples include Pharrell Wu from the Philippines, Dylan Toh of Singapore, and Phoebe Cai of the United States.
In 2013, Brilliant.org founder and CEO Sue Khim was listed among the Forbes 30 under 30 for the Education category for her work on Brilliant.org.
Here's the commitment from Brilliant.org:
"Brilliant brings together smart, driven young people from around the world. We are finding them early, connecting them to each other, measuring and developing their problem solving ability, and connecting them to opportunities."
"On a typical day on Brilliant, you'll find a 14-year old user from Minnesota posing a computer science problem to users from the UK, Serbia, India, Bangladesh, Peru, Hong Kong, Egypt, Greece, France, Netherlands, and the US, who solve the problem and submit solutions in 5 programming languages."
"Brilliant's problems are created by people all over the world, including olympiad champions and university professors. Members learn how to solve problems by engaging in a vibrant community of students, educators, and enthusiasts. Through the Brilliant network, people discover the resources they need to succeed, the dream that they can, and the allies to help them."