In 2013, the Effective Altruism movement came together for a week-long Summit in the San Francisco Bay Area. Attendees included leaders and members from all the major effective altruist organizations, as well as effective altruists not affiliated with any organization. People shared strategies, techniques, and projects, and left more inspired and more effective than when they arrived.
More than ever, rationality and existential risk reduction are part of the Effective Altruism movement, and so I'm glad to announce to LessWrong the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit.
Following last year’s success, this year’s Effective Altruism Summit will comprise two events. The Summit will be a conference-style event held on the weekend of August 2-3, preceded by a smaller Effective Altruism Retreat from July 27-August 1. To accommodate our expanding movement and its many new projects, this year’s Summit will be bigger than the last. The Retreat will be similar to last year’s EA Summit, providing a more intimate setting for attendees to discuss, to learn, and to form lasting connections with each other and with the community.
We’re now accepting applications for the 2014 events. Whether you’re a veteran organizer trying to keep up with Effective Altruism’s most exciting developments, or you're looking to get involved with a community of people who use rationality to improve the world, we’d love for you to join us.
Definitely attend this if you can! I went last year and it was an amazing experience. Highly, highly recommended. (Yes, even more highly than donating the price of tickets to your favorite effective charity.)
EDIT: also, feel free to ask me stuff about the participant experience, either here or by private message.
Yes; I totally loved attending last year.
How did it compare to CFAR? I thought CFAR was a bit overrated myself. (Maybe because I'm already in the Bay Area and have lots of local EA/LWer friends I tend to get less out of these events?)
I don't think they're comparable? I enjoyed the EA summit for different reasons than I enjoyed CFAR. (I had already been to a CFAR workshop by the time of the summit, and was still very happy I went.)
Is there going to be an after-party open to the "public"?
Yes, but probably not advertised publicly. It will be Sunday evening. Details will be announced at the event, so ask someone who is there if you aren't.
Request: if this happens again in subsequent years, could you announce the dates earlier? I would have liked to go, but have booked a family vacation that week, and I know at least one other person in the same situation.
Sorry about that. We will do our best to announce further in advance, since we really would like to accommodate people who are booked very far ahead of time.
Here are more videos from last year's EAS.
In particular, Holden's Keynote was really good for anyone who's only just starting to get familiar with EA.
Seconded. I've been following GiveWell closely since late 2009, and I learned a bunch of new stuff from that keynote.
Do you know when people will be notified? It would be useful in making travel plans if we found out sooner.
Dumb question: how selective will the application judging be? I'm trying to determine how much time I need to put into my answers to the application free response questions.
Space is limited, so we have to be pretty selective. I'd say it's worth taking some time to present the relevant information.
In 2015, the EA Summit has become EA Global, taking place in San Francisco, Oxford, and Melbourne. See eaglobal.org to apply by May 30!
Any word on this? We submitted applications ~6 weeks ago and it would be useful to find out who will be offered a spot.
We're working on putting the guest list together. I'll notify people as soon as we have definite answers.
While your application correctly identifies Animal Charity Evaluators by its current name, the main EA Summit webpage lists ACE under its old name of "Effective Animal Activism". Is there any chance you could update the page to use the new name?