X Factor For Tech: Will.I.Am and Simon Cowell Working on New TV Show

The next Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs won't be found working in a university computer lab or their parent's garage, instead they will be thrust into the limelight and voted for by a live television audience, before being cast aside and forgotten about before their world-changing webapp is out of beta.

That's right, X Factor for Tech is in the works and could be careering to a TV set near you soon, briefly carrying then destroying the dreams of countless tech startups.

Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.I.Am revealed that he has been in talks with Simon Cowell about creating a talent show using the tried-and-tired X Factor format, but with young technology developers in place of singers.

"Singing and performance create a couple of jobs - but this will create lots," the rapper said at a technology conference in London, reported by the Sun, adding: "We're working on a project called X Factor for tech - and it's going to be out of this world. It's about getting in touch with youth and giving them a platform to express themselves - whether that's in science or mathematics."

There are no details yet on how the format will work, or whether Will, who is also the 'director of creative innovation' at Intel, will be a judge on the show, but we're already worried about what a tech version of Jedward would look like.

Joking aside, we can see the potential of a mashup between Dragons' Den and X Factor, where budding Zuckerbergs pitch their tech startup and the public vote for their favourite, which we presume would receive funding and guidance to get their idea off the ground.

Although such a show could work for BBC 2 on a Sunday evening, if it is to carry the X Factor branding, Simon Cowell and a primetime Saturday night slot, we fear that it'll piggyback off the fame, fortune and Hollywood attention earned by Facebook instead of finding real talent.

There's no guarantee that X Factor for Tech - which we hope is a working title - will make it to production, but if it does then brace yourself for sob stories of dead motherboards and startups forcing to split when one member (sorry, co-founder) can't code quite as well as the others.