Carreras con Impacto: Outreach Results Among Latin American Students

By SMalagon, Miguel Alvarado, Michelle Bruno Hz, Alison Díaz @ 2024-08-21T05:10 (+34)

Overview

At Carreras con Impacto (CCI), we are dedicated to identifying and engaging high-potential students across Latin America, equipping them with the knowledge, tools, and mentorship needed to pursue careers focused on catastrophic and existential risks. Our programs empower students to make a significant impact in areas such as AI risk reduction, biosecurity, and global catastrophic risks, aligning their career paths with the most pressing global challenges.

Program Phases

Virtual Programs (Phase 1):

• 8-hour Introductory Course: Focused on maximizing career impact in the General Global Priority Problems.
• 16-hour Advanced Course: Delivered over 8 weeks, this course covers theoretical concepts, case studies, and practical exercises related to Global Catastrophic Risks (GCRs).

Highlights (Virtual Programs):

• Applications Received: 1,449
• Accepted Applications: 351
• Program Completion Rate: 67.23%
• Likelihood to Recommend: 9.4

Mentorship Program (Phase 2):

After the first phase, the students could send a project proposal. A 14-week personalized mentorship initiative where selected students from Phase 1 develop specific projects, such as policy proposals or research papers, within an organized mentoring program.

Highlights (First Cohort):

• Project Proposals Received: 62
• Accepted Projects: 10
• Mentorship Areas: Artificial Intelligence (3), Biosecurity (2), Communication (3), Cause Prioritization (1), Nuclear Weapons (1)
• Support Network: 35 organizations and individuals
• Impact Evaluation Score: 9/10
• Likelihood to Recommend: 9.2
• Counterfactual: 
  • 63.6% of the mentee’s wouldn’t have learned about Cause Prioritization and/or Global Catastrophic Risks.
  • 72.7% of the mentees would not carry out their individual project if it wasn’t for Carreras con Impacto.

Community Health Evaluation

Mentees were asked to rate the level el agreement from 1 to 10 to a series of sentences intended to evaluate the Community Health Status of Carreras con Impacto. Overall, we received a Perfect Score 10/10. 
 

• “Carreras con Impacto is a place where I could express my opinion freely”
• “Carreras con Impacto is a place where I felt safe and respected”
• “Carreras con Impacto responded efficiently to my questions and concerns“
• “Carreras con Impacto is an organization committed to continuous improvement”
• “My facilitators/mentors reflect the values of Carreras con Impacto as an organization.”

Mentorship Project Results

After 14 weeks with a minimum commitment of 10 hours per week, the students work from the definition of the question to a specific product and a report. The following projects are published on this forum and in both English and Spanish on our webpage: 

• Biosafety and Biosecurity:
  • Development of an Epidemiologic Library – Lilith Jaquelín Díaz Reyes
    • Alumni Highlight: 
      Her project has garnered interest from biosecurity networks in Latin America.
  • High-Throughput Sequencing on the Prevention and Detection of Pandemic Pathogens in LatAM and the Caribbean – Gabriela Stefany Paredes Villafuerte
    • Alumni Highlight: 
      Gabriela has been accepted, with the support of CCI, into the course "Genomics & Epidemiological Surveillance of Bacterial Pathogens - Latin America and the Caribbean" in Costa Rica. Additionally, her project has garnered interest from biosecurity networks in Latin America and will be published as a Review on a Scientific Journal.
• Nuclear Conflicts:
  • Exploring the Consequences of Russia's Absence from the START III Treaty for Strategic Arms Reduction – Ashley Valentina Marte
    • Alumni Highlight:
      Ashley has been accepted into the next cohort of the Global Challenge Project. 
• Global Development:
  • ProteinAid Bihar: Sustainable Nutritional Strategy for Children Under 5 Years Old– María José Guevara
    • Alumni Highlight:
      María has been connected and recommended by international NGOs to continue conducting research on similar fields.  
• Artificial Intelligence:
  • Artificial Intelligence and Biometric Data Protection in Latin America: Lessons from the European Union – Ana Sofía Jimenez
  • Open-Source Replication of Decomposition of Language Models with Dictionary Learning – (Post in progress) Fernando Avalos
    • Alumni Highlight: 
      Fernando has been accepted into the ML4Good program and is Co-founder of the AI Safety Initiative Colombia.
  • Bridging the Compute Divide: Evaluating NAIRR’s Role in Democratizing AI Research and Development – (Post in progress) Jose Gelvez
    • Alumni Highlight:
      Jose is a Co-founder of the AI Safety Initiative Colombia.
• Communication:
  • Social media content generation for raising global causes awareness
  • – Eimy Lorena Fernández Montoya
  • Podcast “Guardianes de Derecho”: Explorando los Riesgos Catastróficos Globales – Alba del Valle Moreno Salazar
    • Alumni Highlight:
      Alba has decided to pursue a degree in International Law after working on a project researching these topics as they relate to Global Catastrophic Risks (GCRs) for her podcast. Additionally, she will continue hosting her podcast.
  • Un Viaje a Través del Virus: Miniserie de Concientización Pandémica – Gabriela Yuliet Rodríguez Valero