Seeking funding to attend Swiss AI Safety Days 2026 for AI Safety Nepal.

Project summary

I am seeking funding to attend Swiss AI Safety Days 2026 in Zurich as a representative of AI Safety Nepal.

More on AI Safety Nepal: https://www.aisafetynepal.org/

What are this project's goals/What's your track record on similar projects?

I have been accepted to attend Swiss AI Safety Days 2026 representing AI Safety Nepal.

AI Safety Nepal is one of the handful of organizations working on AI safety initiatives in South Asia, and one of the pioneering and only organizations in Nepal specifically working in this area.

Through our initiative we have brought together more than 300 people from different backgrounds, including law, cognitive science, industry, and academia, with the goal of bringing more interdisciplinary voices into the field in the past 6 months.

More on us: https://www.aisafetynepal.org/

We also recently completed our 5 weeks AI safety fellowship with reported feedback:

Overall satisfaction (out of 10): 8.8 average

Inspired to contribute to AI safety (out of 10): 9.2 average

Likelihood to recommend to a peer (out of 10): 9.25 average

We received more than 200 applications for 30 spots. We’ve also seen strong engagement and retention throughout the five weeks, which has made us quite excited about what could come next for AI safety in Nepal.

Event report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14qybbDnxncokzKdzjx0tnrXV-d_gYNG7I0lGoOtrRuk/edit?usp=sharing

At Swiss AI Safety Day 2026, I will primarily be representing AI Safety Nepal with two strong motivations:

AI Safety Nepal has already seen interest in collaboration from other organizations in the region. During our recent visit to EAGxIndia 2026, we had conversations with organizations including AI Safety India and AI Safety Delhi about potential opportunities for collaboration. Swiss AI Safety Days would provide a similar opportunity to connect with the European AI safety community. In particular, I hope to meet researchers and organizations across Europe and explore ways to build connections between the AI safety community in Nepal and the broader international community.
Field-building in a low-resource context poses different challenges. One of my goals at the event is therefore to meet other AI safety organizations and learn more about AI safety field-building and community-building. I am particularly interested in the field-building session at the event.

How will this funding be used?

$250 — round-trip travel from Munich to Zurich

$350 — accommodation in a hostel for 3 nights
$150 — food and local transportation

Total requested: $750

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

AI Safety Nepal is a team of six people (https://www.aisafetynepal.org/about) . I will be the only team member attending Swiss AI Safety Days 2026, as I am currently based in Munich, making the travel more financially feasible than for the other team members.

I am currently a graduate student at the Technical University of Munich and a founding team member and co-operations lead at AI Safety Nepal. Before starting my graduate studies, I worked as a research assistant at the Nepal Applied Mathematics and Informatics Institute for Research for three years.