Tim Draper gets some face time with new TV program

From the mind of the man who fruitlessly proposed to split California in six parts comes “Startup U,” a new reality show on ABC Family.

Tim Draper, the venture capitalist and founder of Draper University, had his series premier Tuesday night.

Though we’ve only seen clips of the first episode, various reports indicate that it follows the lives of several young people taking part in a crash course on how to initiate a startup. In one preview, Draper welcomes a surprised audience from the roof of a building, screaming “Are you ready to be a hero?”

“All right, you ready to have some fun? “Get ready to change the world,” he adds. He then appears to rappel from the roof.

Draper, who described his character on the show as something between Professor Xavier and Willy Wonka, is no stranger to “Shark Tank”-like competitions.

His “Fix California Challenge,” run through a non-profit he founded, invited anyone to submit policy ideas for California. Winners will be presented to people who might fund a ballot initiative. The challenge is now down to its final “Forward-Thinking Four” contestants, including a proposal to force the state to delete a law for each one it adds.

Draper got excited ahead of time, though, about an idea to get more government officials using a privately-owned budget transparency software called OpenGov. Early on in the competition, he invested in the software personally and announced his nonprofit would buy it for any county that wanted to try it for a year.

This story was originally published August 12, 2015 at 4:09 PM.