@Austin raising an issue: I've received messages from people (who wanted to upvote and comment on this post) since 5 days ago, that they have trouble creating an account on Manifund. Seems to be a system error. Please could you look into it?

Also Update:
1. 5 more speakers confirmed: Joschka Braun (MATS), Alan Chan (GovAI), Cristian Trout (Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company), Robert Kralisch (AI Safety Camp), Simon Skade (indep. researcher supported by LTFF);

2. We have so far received:
- 194 registrations for our Launch event
- 43 Pivot Track applications for career professionals
- 22 mentorship applications (deadline: 26th Feb) to the SAIGE Incubator Program

3. Three more city chapters are getting the support to start their initiatives: Frankfurt (which is great for transitioning career professionals), Bonn, and Kassel.

4. A new resources tab (Feedback welcome!)

Thank you so much @Joschka for your support and for volunteering to be a speaker and mentor! I look forward to our collaborations and more discussions with you about the German/EU AI Safety space + your MATS experience :)

Thanks @Milli ! It was really helpful to discuss with you and to know your perspective from the Berlin ecosystem. I do agree that while technical research often happens in English, we'll also need the German-language aspect to perform outreach most effectively. We currently have a volunteer translation team of 12 people, but we would need the central operations staff to really leverage this energy for larger projects like a German AI Safety Day/career fair!

Thank you @Finn-Metz !! Looking forward to seeing you at EAG this weekend :)

Thank you so much, @Austin , it means a lot to have your personal support ❤️ Actually, I am landing in SF today. If you're around, I'd love to say hi and thank you in person.

Thanks a bunch @anders_e 🙏

The whole team is very capable and thank you for joining the team of advisors!!

@Alexander thank you very much, I equally enjoyed our chat! And yes, having the impressive Manon on board with SAIGE is a big de-risker for our project. Looking forward to coordinating closer with the Dutch ecosystem :)

Thanks @Bernhard-Albach ! It's been good to see you taking an interest in AI Safety and looking forward to seeing you at the launch event XD

Update 02/02/2026:
1. Our designated tech lead has committed to working voluntarily for the start of SAIGE. I have rewritten the [BASE] budget accordingly.
2. We have confirmed collaboration with Impact Academy as well as HIP, and the Pivot Track (for career professionals) is live today.
3. As part of our incubator program (of which the call for mentors is also live), we are hosting biweekly talks aimed at incubator participants and also to a wider audience, provided there are spaces left. We have so far confirmed four speakers: Teun van der Weij, Ari Brill, Guillaume Corlouer and Naci Cankaya.
4. Our launch event with BlueDot has so far had 148 registrations.

Thanks @PipFoweraker ! It is great to have your support and hope we meet in person someday :)

Thank you @Evander ! Means a lot to have the feedback and support from someone experienced in the German AIS ecosystem.

Thank you @callum-hinchcliffe for all your support, including being the reason why I'm working for AI Safety in the first place.

@Nico-Hillbrand thank you! Last week's field-builders' weekend with AIS Aachen and AIS Saarland was very helpful in pinpointing what local group leaders & Germany need the most. We should do that on a larger scale at some point (+ AIS Tübingen, Berlin, and the future Kassel) to get more feedback for local leaders, and also to make sure that SAIGE continuously addresses the AIS needs&gaps in Germany.

@gergo having your support and feedback from Day 1 (December, it's only been a month since our first call / when I knew that I was going to start AIS Germany 😆) has meant a lot for me. Looking forward to seeing you again in EAG SF!

Thank you @tzukitchan, I'm very glad to have you on board :) your experience in helping AIS groups start has been vital to the initial development of SAIGE. Looking forward to our weekly call tmr!

Also, really valued working with you at Epoch AI last year and learnt a lot from you there. Definitely aiming for that bar with SAIGE.