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GiveWell’s current progress and priorities | Olivia Larsen Jan 01, 2021

Show notes

Olivia discusses GiveWell’s current work and forward priorities, including new areas of GiveWell’s research, as well as sharing some updates on some of GiveWell’s projects in Asia.

GiveWell is a nonprofit dedicated to finding outstanding giving opportunities and publishing the full details of their analysis to help donors decide where to give.

Unlike charity evaluators that focus solely on financials, assessing administrative or fundraising costs, GiveWell conducts in-depth research aiming to determine how much good a given program accomplishes (in terms of lives saved, lives improved, etc.) per dollar spent. Rather than try to rate as many charities as possible, GiveWell focuses on the few charities that stand out most (by their criteria) in order to find and confidently recommend high-impact giving opportunities (our list of top charities).

This talk was taken from EA Global Asia and Pacific 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

Biosecurity Career Story | Dr Tara Kirk Sell Dec 29, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, Dr Sell talks about her history with Olympic swimming, how she came to work on biosecurity, and what she is working on now during the pandemic.

Dr. Sell is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At the Center, she conducts, manages, and leads research projects to develop a greater understanding of potentially large-scale health events. She also serves as an Associate Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Health Security (formerly Biosecurity and Bioterrorism). Dr. Sell co-directs the Health Security PhD track within the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering.

This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk on the Center for Effective Altruism YouTube channel

Reducing global catastrophic biological risks | Jaime Yassif Dec 22, 2020

Show notes

Jaime discusses NTI’s new report, “Preventing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks”. In February 2020, during the Munich Security Conference, NTI convened senior leaders from around the world for a scenario-based tabletop exercise designed to identify gaps in global capabilities to prevent and respond to high-consequence biological events. The report summarizes the exercise and provides recommendations from the organizers.

Jaime Yassif is a senior fellow for global biological policy and programs at NTI. She is currently leading several major biosecurity projects, with a particular focus on reducing global catastrophic biological risks.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization working to protect our lives, livelihoods, environment and quality of life now and for future generations from the growing risk of catastrophic attacks from weapons of mass destruction and disruption (WMDD)—nuclear, biological, radiological, chemical and cyber. Founded in 2001 by Sam Nunn and philanthropist Ted Turner, NTI is guided by a prestigious, international board of directors. Joan Rohlfing serves as president.

This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

Doing empirical global priorities research: the question of civilizational collapse and recovery| Luisa Rodriguez Dec 18, 2020

Show notes

Luisa Rodriguez discusses approaches to global priorities research, focusing on answering important empirical questions. She uses her recent work on civilizational collapse and recovery as a case study.

Luisa Rodriguez is research fellow at the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research. Previously, she researched nuclear war at Rethink Priorities and as a visiting researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute. Before that, she conducted cost-effectiveness evaluations of nonprofit and government programs at ImpactMatters, Innovations for Poverty Action, and GiveWell (as a summer intern).

This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

Evidence, cluelessness and the long term | Hilary Greaves Dec 15, 2020

Show notes

Principles of effective altruism counsel paying close attention to the evidence, to find the most cost-effective opportunities to do good. But evidence covers only the more immediate effects of any intervention, and it’s highly likely the vast majority of the value is thereby omitted from the calculation. Hilary discusses the range of possible responses to this fact, and in particular whether it supports or instead undermines “longtermism”.

This talk was taken from EA Student Summit 2020. Click here to watch the talk with the PowerPoint presentation.

A new tool for evaluating opportunities to help farm animals globally | Lucas Alvarenga Dec 11, 2020

Show notes

How does an EA-minded multinational farmed animal organization evaluate its priorities to have the greatest impact in such a complex global context? Lucas talks about a new tool that Mercy For Animals is developing to help international organizations and globally-minded and impact-driven funders to help make more strategic decisions for animals.

Lucas Alvarenga is the Vice President of Mercy For Animals (MFA) Brasil. Mercy For Animals is an organization that exists to end one of the greatest causes of suffering on the planet: the exploitation of animals for food, in particular, industrial animal agriculture, aquaculture, and fishing. These forms of food production cause egregious animal suffering and have detrimental effects on the planet and people. Mercy For Animals is dedicated to eradicating this cruel food system and replacing it with one that is not just kind to animals but essential for the future of our planet and all who share it.

Suvita’s first year: Vaccines in the spotlight | Fiona Conlon Dec 08, 2020

Show notes

In this episode, Fiona Conlon discusses Suvita’s first year as a new nonprofit, highlighting how their work has been shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and considering its implications for vaccination more broadly.

Fiona Conlon is the co-founder of Suvita. Suvita is a nonprofit organization that implements two rigorously tested solutions which have been found to increase uptake of vaccinations in India:

• Building a network of carefully selected volunteer immunization ambassadors, who share information with new parents in their community about local vaccine clinics.
• Sending personalized SMS reminders to caregivers informing them when their child is due for a vaccination.

Emerging evidence suggests that a combination of both these methods is more effective and more cost-effective than either in isolation.

EAGxVirtual 2020: Q&A with Toby Ord Jul 22, 2020

Show notes

Note from EARadio: I originally used the wrong audio for this episode. Instead of this Q&A, it was a talk by Toby that summarized The Precipice. Sorry!

Toby Ord is a philosopher at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute. His work focuses on the big picture questions facing humanity. What are the most important issues of our time? How can we best address them?

Toby’s earlier work explored the ethics of global health and global poverty. This led him to create an international society called Giving What We Can, whose members have pledged over $1.4 billion to the most effective charities helping to improve the world. He also co-founded the wider effective altruism movement, encouraging thousands of people to use reason and evidence to help others as much as possible.

His current research is on avoiding the threat of human extinction and thus safeguarding a positive future for humanity, which he considers to be among the most pressing and neglected issues we face. He addresses this in his new book, The Precipice.

https://theprecipice.com

Original Video

EAGxVirtual 2020: COVID-19: GiveDirectly’s emergency cash response (Rachel Waddell) Jul 17, 2020

Show notes

In this talk, Rachel Waddell provides an overview of GiveDirectly’s rapid response to COVID-19 across countries of operation. In particular explaining remote responses launched in Uganda and Kenya, in partnership with local CBOs and telecommunications partners.

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Original Video

EAGxVirtual 2020: The latest advice from 80,000 Hours (Michelle Hutchinson and Arden Koehler) Jul 16, 2020

Show notes

Michelle Hutchinson (Head of Advising) and Arden Koehler (Research Analyst) answer questions about 80,000 Hours’ career advice, the career advising programme, and what’s new at the organization.

Original Video

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