Horizon Fellowship (瞻遠學者)
Increase your impact and connect with like-minded people
Do you care about doing good? Care about having a meaningful career? Care about effectiveness? Are you working in a related field? Through this fellowship, you'll learn the key ideas of Effective Altruism with a small group of other people who care deeply about improving the lives of others in the most effective ways they can. Guided by a facilitator, you will learn new concepts, frameworks and counter intuitive ideas to help you have more impact in your career, donations and other projects.
Next round: Jul 27 (Sat) + Aug 3 (Sat)
Application Deadline: July 24
With limited resources, how can we do the most good?
Doing good better is one of the defining challenges of our time. Given resource constraints, it is crucial that we make the most effective use of what we have in order to create the greatest positive impact possible. And this is essentially what the Horizon Fellowship is all about: The Horizon Fellowship helps you think about how to do good effectively and helps you to reflect on how to maximise your potential to make a difference.
In 2020, this was the first introductory EA fellowship in Asia. The Horizon Fellowship is a programme you can complete alongside your work/studies, bringing together core reading, interactive group discussions, 1:1 mentoring, and more. We explore topics including the effectiveness mindset, global health/poverty, animal welfare, artificial Intelligence, etc., and how to get involved in careers contributing to some of the world’s most pressing problems.
Dates and times
Part 1: Introduction to Effective Altruism
The Horizon Fellowship consists of two parts. Each part takes place over two weekends. Part 1 covers the fundamental concepts of Effective Altruism.
Dates: 27th July & 3rd August 2024 (Saturdays)
Time: 10am to 3pm (including 1 hour lunch break)
Location: The Hive, 8/F Cheung Hing Industrial Building, Kennedy Town
Format: In-person
Cost: FREE
Part 2: Diving into EA Priority Cause Areas
All who complete Part 1 are automatically invited to join Part 2. Horizon Fellowship Part 2 delves deeper into these ideas and explores practical applications for making a greater impact in different priority cause areas.
Dates: 19th & 26th October 2024 (Saturdays)
Time: 10am to 3pm (including 1 hour lunch break)
Location: The Hive, 8/F Cheung Hing Industrial Building, Kennedy Town
Format: In-person
Cost: FREE
Thinking about your next step: Putting EA into Practice
To cap off the learning, fellows are invited to join a career event where they have the opportunity to meet and hear from three distinguished speakers who have implemented the learning from EA into their own careers and their giving.
Date: TBC
Agenda and Objectives
Part 1
Introduction to Principles of Effective Altruism
Day 1
Registration opens from 9:45am
Session 1.1: Introduction to Effective Altruism
- Lunch hour -
Session 1.2: Thinking empathically: who and how much?
By the end of the day, you will...
Know:
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Facts about how far humanity has come, and how much room for improvement exists
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Some main EA cause areas
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Something about the EA landscape in Hong Kong
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The definition of scope insensitivity
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The idea of an expanding moral circle
Understand:
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Four basic ideas you agree with that lead to the logical conclusion of EA
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The fundamental principles of EA effectiveness mindset, including impartiality
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Inspiration/Optimism about human trajectory and individual capacity to do as much good as possible
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The need to overcome scope insensitivity
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The possibility of an ongoing moral catastrophe
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That debate around the moral patienthood of non-human animals
Be able to:
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Use online resources from the EA internet to explore cause areas of interest.
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Use double cruxing as a technique to collaboratively resolve disagreements
Day 2
Session 1.3: Thinking rationally about global health
Lunch hour
Session 1.4: Thinking long-term
By the end of the day, you will...
Know:
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The definition of the scout mindset
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Differences in impact are huge
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How to use the ITN framework
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The definition of existential risks, existential catastrophe, longtermism
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The future is vast and humanity’s potential is large
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Future people deserve moral patienthood
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Now is a point of unusual influence over humanity’s future
Understand:
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Our intuitions are often wrong
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Our intuitions about frequency, probability and scale are often wrong.
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Our intuitions about global health are often wrong
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The moral imperative toward cost-effectiveness in global health
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The reasoning for axiological strong longtermism (ASL)
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Some arguments for/against strong longtermism
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Implications for international and Asian philanthropy
Be able to:
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Make more calibrated estimates
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Do expected value calculations
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Make Fermi estimates
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Use the ITN framework to think about cause prioritisation
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Explain in brief the reasoning for axiological strong longtermism (ASL)
Part 2
Diving into EA Priority Cause Areas
Day 1
Session 2.1: Diving into Global Health and Development
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Charity Evaluation (GiveWell) and Differences in Impact
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Global Poverty
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Global Health
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Global health inequalities
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Global burden of disease
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Common diseases in low-income countries
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Mental Health as a Cause Area
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Effective Social Interventions
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Effective Giving
Session 2.2: Diving into Effective Animal Advocacy
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Why Animals? (Animal ethics and moral standing)
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Effective Animal Advocacy
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Farmed Land Animal Welfare
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Fish/Aquatic Animal Welfare
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Wild Animal Welfare
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Alternative Proteins
Day 2
Session 2.3: Diving into Existential Risk Reduction
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Longtermism and the Human Trajectory
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Natural and Anthropogenic Existential Risks
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Climate Change and Effective Environmentalism
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Nuclear Risk
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Pandemic Prevention and Global Catastrophic Biosecurity Risks (GCBR)
Session 2.4: Diving into Risks from Artificial Intelligence
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AI timelines
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The Misalignment Problem
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AI Safety: Alignment Research
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AI Safety: Governance
Thinking about your next step: Putting EA into Practice
In addition to Horizon Fellowship's Part 1 and Part 2 sessions, EAHK organises a standalone 1.5hr introductory session to support individuals in discovering ways to make real-world impact. The topics covered include:
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The landscape of EA and opportunities to take action
Three Guest Speakers
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Sharing their career journeys
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Q&A
Taking Action with EAHK and Beyond
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Booking a 1-1 chat with a career advisor.
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Joining the Community Building team
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Volunteer projects
Past speakers include:
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Jenny Xiao
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VC Fellow at Leonis Capital, investing in Early-Stage AI Startups.
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PhD (ABD) at Columbia University on the International Political Economy of AI
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Andy Tao
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Finance associate at Effective Ventures Foundation
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Former renewable energy data analyst at Bloomberg
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Cynthia Chen
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PhD student at ETH Zurich; AI alignment researcher
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TSE Yip Fai
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Researcher on animal ethics for artificial intelligence at Princeton University; Research assistant to Peter Singer
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Former strategy consultant at Mercy for Animals.
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Austin Zhang
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Trader at Jane Street
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Anthony Lau
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Director of Effective Altruism Hong Kong
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