Or, here's an idea (that might be politically explosive, or really cool): the funding is contingent upon teaching local school students (at various grade levels) programming (which is still not part of the curriculum in most public schools)-- a 10-15 hour per week commitment. This does mean that we must select for people willing to teach, but as far as I'm concerned, if you're not a good teacher, you're not a good leader and I'm not interested in funding you.

Now, public school students are getting after-school coursework with "Silicon [V]alley technology entrepreneurs". These aren't techies getting thrown a bunch of local money to build their careers; they're getting thrown local money to build businesses and teaching students how programming works in "the real world"

So then, there's a great service provided that is of use to the community even if the startups flop.

You might want to look into Startup Chile as a model as close to what you are describing as I can think. Equity free money to build things, with little oversight, and the only stipulation is giving back to the community. This usually happens via public workshops at universities, etc.

It's only 40k USD and only 6 months and the location isn't desirable for westerners to perm relocate and doesn't select for the top 5% of engineers but it's close.

Let's say that each programmer is responsible for a programming club at a public school. Reasonably the club would meet 3 times a week, and would be 2 hours per session. Homework would be assigned, which would need to be 'graded', so you could easily expect 10 - 15 hours a week for the teaching commitment.

Now, how many students would you be able to handle per mentor? I agree that teaching is part of leadership, but few team leaders have had to teach a 100 people at the same time. Maybe 30 per mentor?

Of course, after a year or two the senior students could help as mentors.

Who would join? Since it's a club, students will expect it to be fun. Granted, there are sports, band, cheerleading, etc where it is accepted that there will be hard work involved. They each have some kind of payoff, like games and concerts. I guess the club would be broken down into coaching and development sessions to teach skills, and then projects to develop them. You would want the projects to be something that the students could show the rest of the school, like a website or toy app. It would need to be small enough to be completed during a semester and could be done with the help of the art or A/V club.

How will a professional programmer feel about all of this? Yes, it is rewarding to teach, but at the same time you would be working with teenagers with varying levels of commitment. You're selecting for a very special type of person now, that is a programmer with vision, leadership skills, and that actually enjoys being around young adults.

I could see this working with small groups: 5 to 10 highly motivated students that already know the basics of programming hacking together apps with the help of a mentor. For those who don't know how to program yet, maybe work with the local colleges to open up programming courses similar to Vocational programs or Post Secondary Education Opportunities to learn the basics and earn college credit while still in high school.

I don't think cities or towns have either the money to invest nor the knowhow to administer such a thing. I think it would likely have to be investor-led, preferably wealthy technologists, who would then shop it around to local governments.

Hmm. That may be right. But I think something real is here, especially now that I've added in the teaching factor.

Do you know anyone who'd be able to look at this idea as a potential principal? My email is michael.o.church at gmail.

Tony Hsieh might be a good fit given his vision with Downtown Project (http://downtownproject.com/).