Talent Identification Advisor

Help us connect with world-class STEM talent in your region and communities for our upcoming program!

Impact Academy is a startup that runs cutting-edge fellowships to enable global talent to use their careers to contribute to the safe and beneficial development of AI.

We are soon launching applications for the Global AI Safety Fellowship 2025 to help advance research on the safe and beneficial development of AI.

With this fellowship, we aim to connect world-class STEM talent with three to six-month placement and mentorship at pioneering AI safety organisations such as the Center for Human-Compatible AI (UC Berkeley), Conjecture, FAR AI, and the Mila-Quebec AI Institute. We’ll have a particular focus on talent from regions such as Singapore, India, Hong Kong, South Korea, Hungary, Romania, Morocco, and South Africa, among others.

Compensation:

• This is a part-time role. To achieve the best outcomes from our efforts, we suggest 10-12 hours per week for up to 8 weeks (~2 months, with the possibility of an extension depending on the outreach needs and the candidate’s interest).
• We understand that the time commitment would be dependent on your availability, and we are happy to work with you to identify a mutually suitable time arrangement.
• By default, we will compensate $30 per hour for work completed each month per the conditions above. The payment would be pro-rated depending on the number of productive hours.
• For candidates who bring significant experience in talent identification, strategic outreach, and established professional networks, we would be happy to discuss an adjusted compensation that reflects your expertise.

Referral policy for Advisors: We will provide a compensation of $1000 for every unique candidate you refer– someone not in our database– who was directly selected for placement with one of our partner organisations.

Resources: Materials to enable you for this role in an excellent way, such as an outreach spiel, content, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

We are looking for professionals with a basic understanding of AI Safety to help us identify and connect with world-class STEM talent in their regions for advancing research on safe and aligned AI systems.

Below, we have described a set of indicative responsibilities and expectations we would have for the role:

Interact with the Impact Academy team to form a robust understanding of our target candidate profile–exceptional STEM talent. The following are some proxy indicators:

• Medalists of prestigious STEM competitions or awards, such as the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), International Olympiad of Informatics (IOI), and International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), etc.
• First authors of ML research papers in a top publication or winners of the best paper award at a top conference.
• Working professionals in ML roles in big tech firms or quantitative trading firms (e.g. Jane Street) with >1 year of experience.
• Top rankers (99.9th percentile) of highly competitive examinations for university STEM education, such as India’s Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).
• Degree-holders from the very best technical universities in their regions.
• Apart from these, we’ll also consider current students who show particular promise (based on some of the above proxies).
• We expect potential candidates to possess at least a mild to moderate interest in technical AI Safety and Alignment research and the motivation to learn more.

Work with us to develop an outreach strategy to connect with these individuals. Note that you have the flexibility to choose an approach that you believe is most appropriate for your region and target groups. Some potential approaches can be:

• Conduct in-person and online outreach among technical talent hubs in your region– professional networks, networking events for programmers, online communities, math/CS academic societies, etc.
• Spread this information to the alumni of top STEM institutions in your region, through professors in relevant departments or alumni working in prestigious programming/ML engineering/quantitative modelling roles.
• Scan your LinkedIn network to identify primary, secondary, and tertiary connections or profiles in your region that meet the aforementioned description.
• Contact relevant online or in-person communities, such as those related to Olympiads, Python, AI Safety, Effective Altruism (EA), GenAI, and alumni of similarly competitive programs like the Atlas Fellowship and Non-trivial.
• Tap into professional communities in your regions for big tech or quantitative trading firms.

Iterate on your strategy and collaborate with other talent identification advisors and the Impact Academy team.