Emergent Ventures, the grant program founded and run by economist Tyler Cowen through the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, has announced the winners of its 59th cohort. The program provides small, fast grants to entrepreneurs, researchers, and talented young people around the world, with a focus on ambitious, unusual projects. Unlike traditional philanthropic funders, Emergent Ventures is known for its lightweight application process and rapid decisions, offering grants typically on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of dollars rather than large multi-year awards — a model designed to let promising people start working quickly without bureaucratic overhead. The latest cohort, announced on Marginal Revolution, includes the following recipients:

• Tym Syrytczyk, London — autonomous vehicles in the UK.
• Shane Regan, Long Island, 16 — AI agents.
• Maximilian Kornstein, 15, Atlanta area — agents and general career support.
• Irene Chen and Jessica Dai, UC Berkeley — data on peptides use (Chen, Dai).
• Evan Warfel, Bay Area — updated meta-analyses through AI.
• Daniel Dominguez Gomez — biomedical think tank for Mexico.
• Malhaar Agrawal, U Penn. — prediction markets and clinical trials.
• Andrei Russel Ismael, Harvard — biomedical start-up.
• Benedict Springbett, London — conference on the importance of legal issues for UK growth.
• Metin Metin, Izmir, Turkey, 15 — AI and brain organoid electrophysiology.
• Ben Vyshedskiy, Harvard — biology podcast.
• Afra Wang, Bay Area — podcast and study of Chinese AI.
• Joe Hazell, LSE — AI and macroeconomics.
• Anne Arno, Krakow — writing and biography.

As with previous cohorts, the list spans multiple countries — including the UK, the US, Poland, Turkey, and Mexico — and a wide range of fields, from autonomous vehicles and biomedical research to AI agents, prediction markets, macroeconomics, and biography. The cohort also continues the program's pattern of backing exceptionally young grantees, with several recipients aged 15 and 16 working on AI-related projects, reflecting the program's willingness to fund people based on promise rather than credentials — a notably heavy share of this cohort's projects involve AI applications, from AI-updated meta-analyses to AI agents built by high schoolers. Readers interested in following the program can watch for future cohort announcements, which are published periodically on Marginal Revolution, and can apply directly through the program's Mercatus Center page.

The original announcement was published on Marginal Revolution.