om a campaign last year. But Greenpeace has said if it strikes oil this summer it will spark an oil rush that would devastate the fragile Arctic environment. Greenland's government said that Greenpeace's actions were "illegal" and the protesters could be removed by the police if they continued to occupy the rig. "It is a clear illegal action (by) Greenpeace that violates and abuses the free right to sail according to international regulations on the ocean," it said in a statement. Activist Ben Ayliffe, said the protesters set up camp in a survival pod with enough supplies for 10 days and were meters from the huge drill-bit that Cairn hopes will strike oil in the coming weeks. Greenpeace hopes that by disrupting Cairn's tight drilling schedule as it did last year, the onset of colder conditions will stop the campaign later in the year. "We are preventing it from drilling because an oil spill up here would be nearly impossible to deal with due to the freezing conditions and remote location," he said Sunday. Protests by Greenpeace disrupted Cairn's last Greenland drilling campaign in 2010. Although the company found traces of oil and gas it said were encouraging, it was able to drill many disciplines. One winner wants to create a mobile banking system for the developing world. Another is working to create cheaper biofuels. One wants to build robots that can help out around the house. The prizes come at a time when debate in the U.S. over the value of higher education has become heated. New graduates mired in student loan debt are encountering one of the toughest job markets in decades. Rising tuitions and diminishing prospects have led many to ask whether college is actually worth the time and money. "Turning people into debt slaves when they're college students is really not how we end up building a better society," Thiel says. Thiel made his fortune as a co-founder of online payment service PayPal shortly after graduating from Stanford Law School. He then became the first major investor in Facebook. In conversation and as a philanthropist, Thiel pushes his strong belief that innovation has stagnated in the U.S. and that radical solutions are needed to push civilization forward. The "20 Under 20" fellowship is one such effort. Thiel believes that the best young minds can contribute more to society by skipping college and bringing their ideas straight to the real world. And he has the shining example of Facebook to back up his claim. Thiel's faith in the world-changing potential of Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg's idea led him to invest $500,000 in the company, a stake that is now worth billions. Still, the Zuckerbergs of the tech industry are famous because they are the exceptions. Silicon Valley is littered with decades-worth of failed tech startups. Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship and a writer for TechCrunch and Bloomberg Businessweek, has assailed Thiel's program for sending what he sees as the message that anyone can be Mark Zuckerberg. "Silicon Valley lives in its own bubble. It sees the world through its own prism. It's got a distorted view," Wadhwa says. "All the people who are making a fuss are highly educated. They're rich themselves. They've achieved success because of their education. There's no way in hell we would have heard about Peter Thiel if he hadn't graduated from Stanford," he says. Thiel says the "20 Under 20" program shouldn't be judged on the basis of his own educational background or even the merits of his critique of higher education. He urges his critics to wait and see what the fellows achieve over the next two years. According to data compiled by the Ge