Supporting Projects in the Spanish-Speaking Effective Altruism Community
My post on the Spanish-Speaking Effective Altruism community has been warmly received.
I am glad that the community agrees that they are on a good path—and I want to highlight how the international community could support this budding community and help increase its impact.
We are largely here because of the support the international community has lent us—and I hope to transmit what could be done to assist their members further.
I’ll briefly summarize some projects and their funding needs, specifically Carreras con Impacto, EA Mexico, Sentinel Guatemala and Riesgos Catastróficos Globales.
Supporting Carreras con Impacto
Carreras con Impacto is the talent scouting and mentoring program supporting talented young people in Spanish-Speaking countries, focused on how to have more impactful careers and improve the long-term future.
In 2022 had two iterations, the first in México in March and the second in Colombia in October. This program has successfully incubated EA groups, identified and mentored talented candidates, and built an especially cost-effective pipeline for discovering and supporting talent. The programs so far costed $90k in total, and through them, ~8 participants have counterfactually changed their professional careers and/or obtained grants from EA orgs, while ~25 students became involved in local or university EA groups.
Next year, the program needs $200k in funding to continue operating as a hybrid (virtual and in-person) program. They expect to escalate to 20 getting grants or jobs from EA orgs, and 120 students involved in EA groups.
If you think this is something you or your organization could fund, I encourage you to reach out to Sandra Malagón (malagon.sandralz@gmail.com).
(disclaimer: I am currently in a relationship with Sandra Malagón)
Supporting EA México
EA México is a fast-growing community and budding hub. I am currently participating in the EA México fellowship, which is the most diverse and healthy EA environment I have participated in. I believe there is a chance to support an ongoing and impactful community — México is already a place favoured for organizations’ retreats, Russian refugees and EA remote workers because of its open borders, low living costs and friendly culture.
Currently, the project is waiting for grant application results to continue in 2023. If approved, you can help the organizers by 1) donating your time to organize 1-1s and talks for the community, 2) including them in international events relevant to community building and 3) considering visiting or organizing your next team retreat in Ciudad de Mexico. Please reach out to Claudette Salinas (claudette@carrerasconimpacto.org) and Michelle Bruno (michelle.bruno@carrerasconimpacto.org) if you could help them in their journey.
Supporting the Sentinel system in Guatemala
Sentinel is a biosecurity system that aims to set up regional infrastructure and diagnostic technologies to empower first responders with the information they need to be prepared for new pandemics.This initiative is intended to be achieved by deploying point-of-care diagnostics and sequencing technologies in LATAM, training regional professionals and connecting them through an information system called CommCare. They were counting on funding from the FTX Future Fund to get their program started in Guatemala for the next one and a half years of operations.
I am hardly an expert and cannot vouch for its cost-effectiveness. Still, this project seems net good to me, several dedicated members from the Spanish-Speaking EA community are involved, and I would encourage people to take a closer look and consider funding it.
If you want to support Sentinel, I encourage you to reach out to Paulina Paiz (paulinap@sas.upenn.edu).
Supporting Riesgos Catastróficos Globales
Riesgos Catastróficos Globales (RCGs) is an organization promoting public initiatives to foresee, prevent and mitigate GCRs in Spanish-Speaking countries.
(disclaimer: I am one of the founding members and part of their board)
We conducted a pilot program in Spain, that led to us writing a report about public risk management and signing a collaboration agreement with the Madrid city hall. In the future, we want to prioritize México, Colombia, and Chile as countries with potential for similar programs.
We currently have funding to support our operations in the next three months. We are seeking $733k in funding to cover the operations of 2023, and a fiscal sponsorship agreement. If you can provide either, I encourage you to contact info@riesgoscatastroficosglobales.com or directly to me.
I think this is a good opportunity to scout out some potential cost-effective projects in Latin America and Spain. Some avenues of work I am keen on exploring are: 1) the role of tropical countries for food security in the event of a nuclear war or supervolcanic eruption, 2) better biosecurity networks through LatAm and 3) the role of Spain as a testbed for AI regulation in Europe.
Furthermore, I believe this could be a great opportunity to skill up talent in Spanish-Speaking countries. The Spanish-Speaking community is regularly finding highly promising individuals eager to take on early career jobs to prove their mettle, and we believe initiatives like these can help with their career development.
We are also currently hiring for research, policy, management, and operations roles. If you are a Spanish-Speaker who could be a good fit for either of these roles, please have a look at our careers page.
Conclusion
The Spanish-Speaking EA community is well-positioned to discover, nurture and employ talent to tackle some of the most important problems in the world.
But to get there, they need support. I have written down below a summary of my suggestions.
| Action | Contact |
| $200k to support Carreras con Impacto | Sandra Malagón |
Consider Mexico City as a new place to develop your work or host retreats Include the Spanish-Speaking community in the international community discussions Support the organizers by donating your time to give talks and 1-1s to promising students. | Michelle Bruno michelle.bruno@carrerasconimpacto.org and Claudette Salinas claudette@carrerasconimpacto.org |
| Grant to support Sentinel biosecurity program in Guatemala for 1 and a half year. | Paulina Paiz paulinap@sas.upenn.edu |
| $733k and/or a fiscal sponsorship agreement to support RCGs | Jaime Sevilla |
We appreciate all the warm support we have received from the international community, and we are excited to work together towards a better, safer world.
Thank you to Agustín Covarrubias, Laura González, Claudette Salinas, Michelle Bruno, Sandra Malagón and Paulina Paiz for feedback and help editing the post.
As the proud son of Peruvian immigrants, I’m so happy to see EA getting involved in the Latin American community!
I would recommend looking into Peru’s top universities such as Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, and Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) to start EA college groups there or recruit professionals from there.
From what I’ve been told by family and family friends (I grew up very involved in the North NJ Peruvian community and culture), Peru has a way better high school (secundaria) education system in mathematics than US public high schools. Some people told me they were required to take Calculus I and Calculus II to graduate high school.
Also, Peruvian-Americans in the United States have a percentage of obtaining a bachelor’s degree than the average American and Caucasian Americans. According to Wikipedia, “44% of Peruvians born in the United States over the age of 25 have college degrees,[8] exceeding the US national average of 24%.” Last year when I checked the US Census data website’s most recent data, it showed around 36%, if I remember correctly.
Working with the Institute for Liberty and Democracy based in Lima can have a high impact too. The magazine “The Economist” once called it one of the two most important think tanks in the world and was founded by multi-award-winning economist Hernando de Soto.
“ The Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), led by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, works with developing countries to implement property and business rights reforms that provide the legal tools and institutions required for citizens to participate in the formal national and global economy. ILD works toward a world in which all people have equal access to secure rights to their real property and business assets to pull themselves—and their countries—out of poverty.” https://www.ild.org.pe/
This sounds really cool, but I can’t seem to find any details on it outside of this post. Could you point me to a resource (or should I just email Paulina)?
Hi Alex! Thank you for your interest.
Our project is inspired by Sentinel, an ambitious and large-scale pandemic prevention effort in West Africa driven by Dr. Pardis Sabeti (co-founder of Sherlock Biosciences) and Jonathan Jackson (CEO of Dimagi).
Here is the paper about their work: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34452470/
and if you want our formal proposal for the LATAM project you can ask it by email to Paulina!
Amazing, yes I know of the West African initiative and wondered if they were related. Will reach out, thanks!