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Travel support to attend EA Global: New York 2026.
My purpose for attending the event is to learn, talk to people working on compute verification and security, and increase global coordination to enforce a bilateral agreement to pace the frontier of AI development.
FlixBus round trip: $495.23
Friday 8:05 a.m. from Scarborough, arriving in NYC at 9:35 p.m., direct
Monday 9:00 a.m. from NYC, arriving in Scarborough at 10:30 p.m., direct
US border fee: $30.00
NYC transit: $44.69
Toronto rides to and from the bus: $42.02
Meals: $60.07
US SIM and top-up: $45.44
Accommodation, 3 nights, shared room: $317.66
Just me. This is a solo travel grant.
Manifund funded my trip to EA Global: New York 2025 ($500, granted by Austin Chen). This fell short of the actual trip costs by about $250, which I needed to cover out of pocket. I also stayed with a family friend instead of at a hotel, but do not have confirmation that they would be available to host this year. I held 47 one-on-one meetings at last year's event, plus some serendipitous conversations. The trip led to preliminary research on stated vs. revealed preferences in language models, technical feedback on evaluation work, and new connections across AI safety, policy and infrastructure. All of this is documented in my final report:
https://manifund.org/projects/emergency-travel-funding-to-attend-ea-global-new-york-2025-bj3r848lruc
Not reaching the funding minimum before October 16. I don't have an employer or institutional travel budget, so without this grant I won't be able to attend.
Logistics. Bus fares for that weekend are rising as seats sell out, and border delays could cut into the Friday program. If there is no land or air transportation available, I will skip this event and participate in this half-marathon instead: https://www.torontowaterfrontmarathon.com
Low follow-through. The meetings might not turn into concrete collaborations, feedback or research progress. I expect this year's activities to be more focused and goal-directed.
I haven't raised money in the last 12 months. I am on sabbatical, with living costs supported by family. Compute for research experiments is provided free of charge by Lucid Computing and Amodo Design.