MediaFile

Have you dreamed up the next social media sensation, energy-efficient engine or hot consumer gadget but don’t know where to pitch your idea? If you’re between 18 and 24 years old, log onto Facebook.

Intel and Facebook are teaming up in a new program called Intel Innovators to give young people a forum to debut new ideas and give feedback on other people’s. And $100,000 a month are up for grabs to help turn winning concepts into real start-ups — as long as you’re in the United States.

Through the Intel Innovators platform on Facebook, participants can lay out their business ideas and receive suggestions from fans to help refine and improve their plans.

Once a month, a panel of experts including venture capitalists from Intel Capital, SV Angel and Betaworks will award $50,000 to one participant. And the Facebook fan who has built up the most “social capital” by providing feedback to participants will be allowed award another $50,000 to the entrepreneur of their choice.

Would-be Silicon Valley leaders of tomorrow have already pitched several ideas, including a medical tool for collecting bone grafts, a high-tech tent for homeless people and a web application to help patients find affordable prescription medicine. Are we about to discover the next Mark  Zuckerberg?

-- Brad Feld is a managing director at the Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm Foundry Group. He also co-founded TechStars and writes the popular blog, Feld Thoughts. The views expressed are his own. --

Every day I get numerous emails from software and Internet entrepreneurs describing their newest ideas.

Often these entrepreneurs think their idea is brand new – that no one has ever thought of it before. Other times they ask me to sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect their idea. Occasionally the emails mysteriously allude to the idea without really saying what it is.

Less than two months from launching its New York program, TechStars co-founder David Cohen is already anticipating a critical mass being achieved in the startup-mentoring space within the next five years.

Cohen said that when he and two friends first launched TechStars in Boulder, Colorado four years ago there were just a handful of these accelerator programs. Now he said there are upwards of 60 across the country and he expects that to triple before the bubble bursts.

"There will be a run up to a couple hundred and then we’ll probably see a run down to 10 would be my guess over the next five years," said Cohen, who has expanded TechStars to Boston and Seattle in recent years and has invested in more than 70 startups since launching the program. "There will certainly be a little mini accelerator bubble."