Apply to attend an EA conference!
TLDR: We think EA Globals are pretty awesome, and we think it’s probably worth your time to apply, even if you’re on the fence about coming! Applying takes 10 minutes, we have generous financial and travel support available, and most attendees find it a highly valuable experience.
Applications are currently open (all via the same form) for:
EAGxAustralia (8–10 July)
EA Global: San Francisco (29–31 July)
EA Global: Washington, D.C. (23–25 September)
You can find the full list of upcoming events here. Application deadlines are roughly two weeks before each event.
What is an EA Global conference (EAG) like?
EA Globals are conferences for the effective altruism community, typically running from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. They are packed with workshops, talks, and other opportunities to connect with EAs from around the world. We put a special emphasis on networking and 1:1 meetings, and attendees frequently meet future collaborators, find new jobs, or make new friends.
To give you a fuller sense, here are some perspectives from community members.
Who is EAG(x) for?
EAG is primarily for people who have a solid understanding of the core ideas of EA and who are already taking significant actions based on those ideas.
EAGx’s are community-run conferences that are primarily for people familiar with the core ideas of EA and are interested in learning more about what they can do or, more broadly, in meeting the community. More info here. Note that you don’t have to be professionally working on effective-altruism-inspired projects to attend an EAGx conference.
You can apply to all the conferences you would like to attend — and we’d encourage you to apply to several if you’d like. You’re not limited to just one!
How much is it? Can I get financial aid to come?
The default price of a ticket to EAG is £200 GBP, but we don’t expect most people to pay the full price. Ticket prices for EAGx conferences vary.
Many people don’t pay the full price. We have generous financial aid available, including for flights and accommodation. Please do apply for aid if you need it — if we admit you, we want you to come, regardless of how much you can pay. Students get free admission to all our EAG(x) events, and we also have ticket discounts and travel support.
If cost is a barrier to coming to EAG, please apply anyway — we can most likely fund you!
What if I need a visa to attend?
We’re happy to help with this. Please apply as early as possible, and let us know during your application. We’ll fast track your decision, and can provide visa letters for admitted applicants.
How do I apply?
You can apply for all three conferences here — it should take 10 minutes or less.
I have more questions / suggestions / feedback.
Here’s our FAQ page. If you have any questions or ideas for how to make EAGs better, feel free to leave them below, or email us at hello@eaglobal.org. We’re always grateful for any feedback people have for how to make our events better!
Also, if you aren’t sure, apply! It’s the organising team’s job to decide who attends so apply to as many as you want and let them decide.
I wanted to describe my personal experience in case it shifts anyone like me towards applying. I was accepted, received travel support, and went to EAG London last month.
Initially, I considered the likelihood that I would be accepted and be able to go very low: I didn’t think I was involved enough in EA and I didn’t think it made sense for me to receive travel support to go as I live very far from London. I also didn’t think that I ‘deserved’ to go: I reasoned that I shouldn’t take a spot from someone more engaged in EA or could provide more value to other attendees. I probably wouldn’t have applied if not for having a personal connection with someone else who applied.
Nearly every interaction I had at the conference was positive. Many people I spoke to were happy to share about their area even if I had little prior understanding, and I was surprised to find I had ideas and perspectives that were unique/might not have surfaced in conversation had I not been there.
As a young person, I have never felt more respected as a full person and equal with meaningful ideas to contribute. EAG is intense—it can be near constant interaction with a lot of people, focused on the most important problems in the world. But going to EAG made me feel like a ‘part of’ EA, and gave me a lot more confidence to make decisions, to try things, to reach out to people.
If you’re like me and concerned about not being qualified or not having done enough, let the organisers judge, and consider the possibility that EAG might give you the ability to do more later.
I think this is one of the reasons EAG (or other ways of informally conversing with regular EAs on EA-related things) can be extremely valuable for people. It lets you get epistemic and emotional feedback on how capable you are compared to a random EAG-sampled slice of the community. People who might have been underconfident (like you) update towards thinking they might be usefwl. That said, I think you’re unusually capable, and that a lot of other people will update towards feeling like they’re too dumb for EA.
But the value of increased confidence in people like you seems higher value than the possible harm caused by people whose confidence drops. And there are reasons to expect online EA material to be a lot more intimidating due to being way more filtered for high-status (incl. smart), so exposure to low-filtered informal conversations in EAG probably causes higher confidence in people who haven’t had had a lot of low-filtered informal exposure yet (so if that describes you, reader, you should definitely considering going). Personally, I have a history of feeling like everything I discover and learn is just a form of “catching up” to what everyone else already knows, so talking to people about my ideas has increased my confidence a lot.
Small suggestion, instead of writing SF and DC, I’d put the full name instead of the abbreviations ‘SF’ and ‘DC’. I’d guess SF means San Francisco and DC Washington DC, but it’s not very open and clear to people outside the United States. (Especially when it’s an EA global event!)
Thanks for the suggestion here! I’ve edited the post to put in the full place names, and will try to do so on our other communications/sites.