Thanks for the ping, @joel_bkr. This seems like an interesting opportunity! I have some questions that would help me better assess this opportunity, and plausibly help others too.
However, since answering these questions might take a lot of your time, I just want to say upfront that based on the info above I think I'm unlikely to fund this opportunity and, if I'd fund it, I'd probably be closer to <5k rather than 10k.
Here you go:
I'm confused about the focus of the organization: is it on x-risk, global development, or both?
You mention the focus of the fellowship is on AI safety, pandemic preparedness, and great power conflict at the beginning of the post. However, on the list of host-led projects you just have organizations focused on global development-related issues. On the participant-led projects you mention a focus on "Mountaintop will select candidates serving a lower-income community in any country outside of the United States." Maybe orgs like CSR and 1DS would be closer to the x-risk camp, but it's unclear to me what your partnership with these orgs looks like and I don't see references to any AI safety orgs.
For the x-risk-focused, I'd be curious to hear more about the organizations you'd partner with for placements and examples of projects you'd like to see. (Feel free to ping me (renan@rethinkpriorities.org) if you wouldn't like to share this publicly to avoid candidates gaming the selection process.)
This would make a difference in how impactful I think this opportunity is – to be frank, at first glance the current list of partners for the leadership institute doesn't strike me as particularly exciting considering it's mostly focused on leadership-related skills (that I think can often be learned elsewhere) rather than neglected abilities or object-level expertise. However, I think it's impressive that you've partnered with several prestigious organizations, so I'm keen to learn more about your ability to partner with x-risk-relevant orgs.
I'd love to see more concrete end and intermediate goals. Examples:
How does this program reduce catastrophic risks?
(Plausibly via great placements in relevant organizations, but my impression is that most of the orgs currently listed are not incredibly transformative NGOs or government agencies. So maybe the impactful placements would happen after the fellowship?
After people go through the leadership institute, what do you expect to change? How will you know you're on track?
The timeline is quite long (end of 2025 is the target for this first iteration), so I'm interested in how you'll track progress throughout.
After people go through the placement, how will you track success?