Breakthrough Initiatives

The Breakthrough Initiatives company was founded in 2015 by Yuri and Julia Milner and is funded by their foundation to seek scientific evidence of life in the Universe.

Among their initiatives:
Breakthrough Listen – a $100 million program of astronomical observations and analysis, the most comprehensive ever undertaken in search of evidence of technological civilizations in the Universe. They partner with some of the world’s largest and most advanced telescopes across five continents to explore targets, including one million nearby stars, the entire galactic plane, and 100 nearby galaxies at a wide range of radio and optical frequency bands.
Breakthrough Message – a $1 million competition to design a message representing Earth, life, and humanity that could potentially be understood by another civilization. The aim is to encourage humanity to think together as one world and to spark public debate about the ethics of sending messages beyond Earth.
Breakthrough Starshot – is a $100 million research and engineering program aiming to demonstrate proof of concept for new technology, enabling ultra-light uncrewed space flight at 20% of the speed of light and laying the foundations for a flyby mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation.