EAGxBoston: Updates and Info from the Organizing Team

By Kaleem @ 2022-03-11T00:13 (+65)

EAGxBoston: Final Updates and Info from the Organizing Team 

TLDR: Here is all the information you need if you’re attending EAGxBoston 2022! (Updated 27th March 2022)

Intro

EAGxBoston will be taking place from 6pm on Friday the 1st of April until 8pm on Sunday the 3rd of April. We’re very excited about how big, exciting, and high quality this conference is shaping up to be—we are prepared to welcome up to 1,000 attendees and it’s looking likely that we’ll actually be doing that, making EAGx Boston the biggest EAGx ever, and the biggest EA event to date in the US!

If this is your first time attending an EA conference (or even if you have attended one before but perhaps didn’t take preparation seriously) we suggest reading these excellent posts about how to get ready for an EA conference. We also recommend this post about how to make the most of one-on-ones (which we encourage people to do), this post about 1-1s from an EAGxOxford attendee, and this post with questions which lead to good conversations. 

We’re also still eager to expand our team of pre-event and on-the-day volunteers (it’ll be fun and impactful) ! There are lots of other ways to engage with other attendees before the event: there is an #eagxboston-2022 channel on the Groups Slack, there is this WhatsApp group, there are EA Facebook pages, and the Swapcard app (now launched!). The applications for EAGx Boston closed on the 21st of March, and we will not be accepting any more applications, so please do not email us asking to register/apply now. 

Dates and times

In case you missed this somehow, the conference is happening from the 1st to 3rd of April 2022. The tentative schedule is available on the swapcard app, but it is subject to slight changes in the leadup to the conference. You will be able to register for a seat in specific sessions starting at 5pm EST on the 29th of March. 

Swapcard App

NB: Many people are emailing us about not being to access swapcard or not having received a swapcard invitation email. You will not be able to join swapcard unless you've submitted your vaccination proof on your registration form. We have sent an email with a link to allow anyone who has applied to upload their vaccination proof: once you've done so, you'll get a swapcard app invitation email. 

Please download the Swapcard app—you’ll be asked to complete your profile, organise your schedule and connect with fellow attendees. You’ll be able to upload photos you take at the conference to a shared folder via the app, and show your ticket at registration too.

Registration

Registration will open at 5:30pm on the 1st of April at BCEC. There will be signs and volunteers to guide you to the registration area. At registration you’ll be asked to show your ticket (on your swapcard), and then you’ll receive your EAGxBoston name badge (a very small number of attendees will have to write their name on a blank name badge with white Sharpie). 

Location 

The conference will be happening at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) located at 415 Summer St, Boston, MA 02210, in Boston’s Seaport District. There are multiple ways to get to the venue: You can use the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority)’s Red Line or Silver Line, or the 4, 7, or 11 bus, depending where you are starting from. If you’re using the red line, South Station is the closest station to BCEC (~4min / ~1.1km/ ~0.7mile walk). Broadway station is also close (7min / ~1.4km / ~0.9mile walk). If you use the silver line, the SL1, SL2, SL3, and SLW all stop right next to BCEC. 

Parking

There is $25-per-day parking at BCEC, which is available to attendees. Please let us know ahead of time if you’ll need parking so we can let the security company know to expect you. 

Venue info 

If you’ve looked at BCEC online or via maps, you’d have noticed that it's basically the size of a small airport. We will be using the entirety of one side of the second floor—that is to say, we have loads of space. In addition to the massive amount of meeting (and eating) space, you can also walk around the rest of the interior of BCEC, or around its exterior perimeter. The venue is completely wheelchair accessible, and has escalators and elevators. If you have any other requirements, drop us an email and we can make sure the right support is in place for you to have a successful and pleasant conference. 

How to get into the Venue. 

The conference will be happening on the 2nd floor of the Northern side of BCEC. Registration (and the centre of the conference) will be the Northwest Lobby. You can get there by entering through the front of BCEC (Summer St) and following the signs right-ways (we will have volunteers to direct you and signs too). You will find an escalator (about 150m after entering the Summer St Entrance) on the first floor to take you to the Northwest lobby. 

What there’ll be in the venue 

• Free Wifi throughout
• Coat check (which you can also use to store bags and things that aren't coats.)
• Quiet space
• 2 large one-on-one spaces with >100 2-person tables
• General session space
• Dining space for ~800 people at a time
• 7 ~60 person workshop/meeting spaces
• First aid
• Security at the entrances
   

What we recommend you bring with you

• Refillable water bottle
• Rain jacket/umbrella
• Laptop/notebook
• Laptop and phone chargers
• Things to help you de-stress or relax during off time, such as a book or headphones or an eye mask if you want to take a nap
• Necessary medications
• An ID document (we don’t need to see it but it seems like a good thing to have with you)
   

What you should not bring

• Alcohol
• Illegal drugs
• Weapons
• Bad vibes
• Lifeguarding equipment - contrary to popular belief, there will be no “save the drowning child” activity at EAGxBoston. 
   

What you should wear

Please dress comfortably and in whatever makes you feel happy. It could be mild and rainy in early April in Boston, so bring a rain-proof layer in case. We’ll have disposable ponchos at the conference. 

COVID policy 

We will not mandate the wearing of masks. However, we encourage people to think seriously about their decision to wear/not wear one with respect to other attendees’ safety. We will have ~1,000 KN95 masks available to give to attendees. If you’ve registered, you’d have seen that you’re required to be vaccinated prior to attending. We strongly encourage attendees to take rapid tests a couple days before the conference and on the day of the conference if possible. If you are feeling unwell at any point in the days leading up to or during the conference, we recommend not attending any events or gathering with other attendees (or non-attendees, really) until you test negative on a PCR or rapid Covid test. We will have ~300 rapid tests available for attendees. At this stage (>10 days out), you should not attend the event if you’ve tested positive after the 22nd of March. 

Meals 

• There will be light refreshments and finger food at the reception on Friday evening.
• There will be a continental breakfast available from 9:00-10:30 am on both Saturday and Sunday
• Buffet lunch from 12:00pm-1:30pm on Saturday and Sunday
• And buffet dinner from 6:00-7:30pm on Saturday. There is no dinner provided on Sunday night, as we want to encourage attendees to explore the city and socialize with each other outside of the event.
• There will be snacks and drinks available between lunch and dinner, and water-filling stations in all the workshop and eating spaces.

All the food at the event will be vegan. 

For attendees observing Ramadan, please contact the event organizers as soon as possible if you would like us to arrange Suhoor/Sehri. Iftar falls within the dinner period. For attendees with allergies or requirements, please email the organizers (boston@eaglobalx.org) as soon as possible so that the information can be relayed to the caterer.

Accommodation

For those looking for tips for accommodation, we suggest looking at areas on the Red Line between Alewife and Savin Hill stations, as well as along the 4, 7, or 11 bus routes (which are well integrated into Apple Maps and other map services). There are several hotels in the Seaport area, and a limited number of Airbnbs (it’s not really a residential area). We’ve created this crowd-sourced list of accommodations to help people share places they've discovered and coordinate on sharing accommodations—it is quite underpopulated, so adding things to it would be helpful, at least as of the time of this posting. 

For group organizers

We have secured ~200 rooms that can be booked by city and university groups on a first-come-first-serve basis. The full details of this can be found pinned on the #eagxboston-2022 channel in the EA Groups workspace. 

These rooms are now full. 

Bonus info!

If you’ve been so studious as to have read this far (or so cunning as to jump to the bonus info section), we’d like to offer some juicy (or at least what we think are juicy) sneak peeks into the conference. 

• Some exciting confirmed speakers (although you can now see most/all the speakers on swapcard): Kevin Esvelt, Joshua Greene, Bruce Friedrich, and over a dozen others!
• Attendees will receive a t-shirt with a very cool design, designed by the winners of the $300 prize of the EAGxBoston t-shirt design contest, Marka Ellertson and Jess Austin of Harvard College!
  • + other swag!
• And we will try to have the first US EAG conference photo since the pandemic began (this is scheduled for sunday afternoon at 6pm)!!!

We want everyone to have a good time 

Be considerate, especially of other people’s boundaries. 

Communicate and act in a way that makes everyone feel comfortable and welcome. Harmful or thoughtless behavior does not belong at EAGxBoston. For example, unwanted sexual attention, unkindness, repeatedly talking over someone, or not respecting someone's COVID-19 boundaries. If you feel unwelcome or uncomfortable for any reason, please get in touch with our community health contact staff in person, via swapcard, or email or phone:
 

• Julia Wise (julia.wise@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) 
• Kaleem Ahmid (6176500260, kaleem.ahmid@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) 

We’ll also flag who Julia, Kaleem, and the rest of the organizers are at the start of the conference. We’ll do our best to make things better because it’s important to us. If at any point you need to speak to Julia or Kaleem about feeling unsafe or uncomfortable, find your nearest volunteer and they will know what to do. 

Take care of yourself. Meeting new people and having lots of conversations can be tiring. Make sure you take some time out during the conference if you feel your energy levels flagging. You can relax in our nap room or quiet working room whenever you need to, or head outside for some fresh Seaport air. 

Final things: 

• If you have any questions about the content of this post or the conference, please leave them in the comments of this post, as they’re likely to be helpful to other readers.
• If you have private or sensitive concerns, or if you would like to ask for your organization to be presented at the career fair, please email us.
• If you have any suggestions that you think are realistic and would be feasible to execute within the next 5 days, please think about them again, and if you still think they’re a good idea, let us know.

CEA and the organizers of the conference reserve all rights to politely decline your suggestions for session pitches and/or suggestions.

We’re so excited about the event, see you there!

The Team (Kaleem, Juan, Rachel, Rocky, Miriam, and Ollie)

Thanks to Sophia Fogel-Davis for proofreading the atrocious first draft of this post.