Thanks for the feedback and the resteem! I'm glad the idea makes sense to you. I've been bouncing it around in my head for a while.

In fact if steem founders had allotted a portion of their original allocation for this purpose, it would have served not only a very useful purpose but could have also promoted steem to the academic community, which will be a big thing.

I agree, and of course larger donations could short-circuit part of that 10-year start-up period. And I think you're also right that engaging the academic community could be very valuable for the blockchain, too.