For my LIA project this summer I relocated to Berkeley, California. There I joined the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative’s (SERI) Summer Research Fellowship as an assistant organizer. SERI is an organization originating from Stanford that supports research that aims to mitigate existential risks, also known as X-risks.

So what is an X-risk? It is defined by the future of life institute as “any risk that has the potential to eliminate all of humanity or, at the very least, kill large swaths of the global population, leaving the survivors without sufficient means to rebuild society to current standards of living”. Although that sounds ominous, there are now many pressing X-risks that threaten humanity’s long-term future. The most prevalent X-risks being researched are currently Biosecurity, Climate Change, AI Safety, and Nuclear Risk. With us now seeing the effects of climate change, a pandemic, and the recent artificial intelligence boom, these risks are no longer a distant thought.

The SERI Research Fellowship is a 12-week research program that supports a number of young researchers working on X-risk. It provides mentorship from leaders in the fields, a rigorous program with speakers, workshops, and field-building, as well as financial support for the fellows. As an assistant organizer, my role was to work with the team to design and implement virtual and in-person programming. My intended impact was to use my skill set to help enable 30 researchers to produce impactful work on mitigating X-risk. For me, I believed that by not undertaking a singular project, but instead working with the team to help accelerate 30 projects across different cause areas, I would improve my net impact in the X-risk community.

Once I made it to Berkeley I immediately got to work. I liaised with WeWork to finalize the setup of our office space and move in. I then worked closely with our neighbours at Lightcone Infrastructure to design and transform our office floor into a functional and inviting workspace. My goal here was to create a workspace that would give our fellows a place to do their best work. It was bright, well-furnished comfortable, and spacious. By providing a dedicated workspace, we increased organic interactions and collaboration between researchers across disciplines. I then begin working with our community manager to design and run virtual event programming. This allowed us to increase utility for our remote fellows across the US and Europe. It was a challenge running a hybrid program for people in vastly different time zones, but successful, nonetheless. While the remote participants were engaging with the program, we aimed to further increase the interaction, knowledge share, and sense of community between the remote and in-person researchers. To do this, I designed a 3-day retreat in Berkeley. We flew our remote researchers to Berkeley to take part in this event.

This project helped me develop a number of leadership skills. I had to collaborate with external organizations, I took leadership over the design and organization of the retreat and worked strongly as part of a team throughout the running of the fellowship. I even had to work on procurement and budget management. Not to mention overcoming the challenge of relocating to the other side of the world to meet and work with people I had never met before! I had a fantastic time in Berkeley, had some really great conversations, and met fantastic people. The project was one to remember!