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Hi, I am Parveen. I've been accepted to present a poster at Swiss AI Safety Days in Zurich (7-8 November) on a report I co-authored through Apart Research's Global South AI Hackathon. Who Watches the Watchers? Governance Agency in AI Verification and Monitoring Regimes I've also been accepted to EAGxBerlin (13-15 November), which falls in the same travel window.
I am a social entrepreneur and an early career AI safety & governance researcher based in India, working on power concentration, reversibility and verification regimes with a global south and institutional design lens. I came to AIS through EA after a deliberate cause prioritisation using the INT (Importance, neglectedness and tractability) framework.
I am seeking $1800-2000 to cover the cost of transportation, accommodation, visa fees etc. and self fund the remainder (Please see the detailed breakdown below). The usual funders like EAGxBerlin team can't fund people outside Europe and The Bluedot impact team stopped funding people based in India recently. That's why I am here. This is a time sensitive request because I need to apply for Schengen Visa asap.
The primary goal is present my work at an international AI safety conference. Being able to explain my work in-person, take questions and get feedback from governance researchers would be invaluable for me.
Another goal is to expand my network. I have been part of the EA community for a while now. I did the CEA Intro course, volunteered at 2 EAGx, and earlier this year reached round 4 of 5 in Charity Entrepreneurship's incubation programme (top 3% of global applicants). But I'm relatively newer to the AI safety community specifically. And these would be my first opportunity to attend in-person AI safety events and engage directly with researchers and peers in the field.
Third goal is to find collabs. I have got few specific ideas. I wanna pressure test them and take feedback. Finding folks who would wanna work on them would be invaluable.
I shall achieve all of my goals by showing up, presenting my work and taking 1-1s seriously.
The requested funding will cover the following to attend both the events:
Flight from New Delhi to Zurich: ~$750
Flight from Zurich to Berlin: ~$140
Flight from Berlin to New Delhi: ~$600
Schengen visa fee: ~$104
VFS processing and biometric fees: ~$50
Accommodation (8-9 nights at hostels): ~$460
Travel insurance: ~$40
Miscellaneous/ unforeseen/ buffer: ~$60
Meals not covered by the events: ~$120
Total: ~$2324
I'm seeking funds $1,800 minimum and $2,000 maximum. I'll cover the remainder myself.
It is not a team project. It's just me. You can find about my track record on my portfolio here- www.parveensheikh.com
On similar projects specifically, I have secured full travel sponsorship to attend (in Chronological order) EAGxIndia 2025 (by EAGx team), EAG London 2026 (by CEA), EAG NYC 2026 (by CEA), EAGxIndia 2026 (by EAGx team). But according to the CEA's travel policy I could only use travel support funding to attend one EAG per year so I chose EAG NYC.
Now I am gonna take this opportunity to share what you won't find on my portfolio. Firstly, I built NISA from scratch. It's a registered Section 8 nonprofit in India. Under Indian law, I can't apply for institutional funding like CSR or FCRA until the org has been running for three years. I registered in March 2024, so I'm still almost six months away from that threshold. That means I've been running NISA, and now my AI safety work on the side, under real resource constraints for two and a half years. I think it shows I can do serious work under uncertainty, make things happen and that I don't give up easily.
Secondly, my AI safety transition has run on the same model. I live in Jodhpur. There is no AI safety community here. Everything so far has come from cold outreach and online work, done around NISA and EA community engagement. That's how I've produced the Apart Research report, the Governance Design Index, the Mangrove middle-powers paper, BlueDot course, Successif 1-1 advising and peer group lead, Project AWARE AI safety fellowship etc. I'm non-technical interdisciplinary researcher from the Global South, and I didn't come through the usual academic institutions pipeline. And I know I'm not the standard profile. I also think that's part of what makes the counterfactual value of these two events, for me specifically, very high.
The most likely reasons for failure are:
Insufficient funding.
Visa delays
If this happens then I'd have to decline the poster acceptance and let the Swiss AI safety days team know so that they can offer the slot to someone else. I'd also lose the EAGxBerlin networking opportunity. And as an outcome my transition stretches out.
I have received £1,870 as travel support to attend EAG NYC 2026 by Centre for Effective Altruism. I also secured travel support to attend EAGxIndia 2026 but EAGx team arranged everything, no money was involved.