Pathfinder Fellowship

Pathfinder Fellowship is sponsored by Kairos Project. Offers mentorship and funding to students organizing AI safety or policy university groups, preparing them for careers in the field.

Pathfinder Fellowship - AI Safety University Group Mentorship & Funding Accelerating campus leaders in AI safety and policy Applications close July 28 (11:59 PM, Anywhere on Earth) Pathfinder is a selective fellowship for students organizing technical AI safety or AI policy university groups around the world.

We provide mentorship, funding, and other resources to help fellows develop into on-campus leaders, preparing themselves and their group members for careers in the Pathfinder organizers can apply for funding to support their group's activities, including everything from compute to speaker events to pizza. Graduate students can also apply for a stipend to support their time spent on the group.

We pair accepted fellows with experienced organizers who will support your planning, share tried-and-tested advice, and work closely with you on your specific goals and challenges. Our workshops, Slack community, and virtual coffee chats provide opportunities to connect with other fellows and share resources, ideas, support, and inspiration. Many of our mentors have worked at top AI safety orgs like METR , RAND , and Anthropic .

They're here to offer you advice and help you navigate your own successful future in the field. Recent Pathfinder participants have landed AI safety roles at orgs like Coefficient Giving , Constellation , UK AISI , and Redwood Research , and gone on to MATS , Astra , Generator , Horizon , and other top fellowships.

Pathfinder hosts workshops on important field-building skills like doing outreach on campus, involving graduate students, and facilitating in-person courses. We also share access to the AI Safety Groups Resource Center, which contains dozens of articles on how to build and manage an AIS university group. Organizing is one of the highest-leverage things you can do for the field, and for your own trajectory.

Pathfinder helps you help students at your university learn and upskill, so they can help the world safely navigate the arrival of transformative AI . Sanyu was great; he was always super helpful and also very flexible and considerate of timing! He has a wealth of experience that was useful for me.

Incredibly valuable to get personalised feedback on ideas over several weeks. You get support and feedback over the whole 'product' process for anything new you want to run: conception, planning, outreach/marketing, execution and evaluation. The programme was set up well, communication was consistently good, and everyone involved with the programme was friendly.

Engaging with FSP was always a better use of time than the counterfactual. The resources and advice shared were great… I have also received a lot of ideas on how to continue my personal career in AI safety. [Without the program], I can't imagine my group being as impactful.

I believe the group wouldn't even exist! But if it had, I estimate it would have been around 5 times less impactful. THANK YOU to the Kairos team!!!

What kind of groups does Pathfinder support? We support groups that are: Focused on AI safety—that is, large-scale risks from transformative AI . This includes groups focused on technical safety, AI governance and policy, AI security, AI welfare, etc. For graduate or undergraduate students.

This includes new groups that will be founded during the upcoming semester. What are Pathfinder's eligibility requirements? Help lead or plan to found a university AI safety group, whether graduate or undergraduate.

Have a strong interest in AI safety and enough knowledge of the field to explain core AI risk concerns to a beginner. Fellows can be based anywhere in the world. If you meet these criteria, we'd encourage you to submit an application.

Top applicants will be admitted to the fellowship. Can I apply if I'm not my group's lead organizer? Yes, as long as you play a significant active role running the group—for example, taking a non-head position on the leadership team.

Can multiple organizers from the same group apply? Yes. While we usually don't select more than two fellows per group, we encourage everyone on your leadership team to apply.

Please submit separate individual applications rather than applying as a group. What is the program's timeline?

Applications open: July 6 Applications close: July 28 Decisions announced: August 3 Kickoff events: August 6 (mentors) and August 7 (mentees) Mentor meetings: Weekly starting August 8 at times that work for you Coffee chats: Weekly starting August 10 at times that work for you Workshops: Starting August 12 Starter funding ($500): August 6 Budget requests due: August 21 Funding decisions: September 2 (expedited available on request) These dates are preliminary and may still change.

Is the Pathfinder Fellowship paid? Graduate student fellows may receive a stipend to support their organizing time. Undergraduates are not eligible for this stipend.

All Pathfinder fellows can receive funding for group expenses. How do we receive funding? For most groups, Pathfinder will arrange fiscal sponsorship, meaning a nonprofit will "adopt" you and provide a spending-capped credit card funded by Kairos.

This helps avoid any tax complications of receiving the money personally, and provides you with an easy way to track your spending. Groups with existing legal entities will instead receive grants. Do I need a fiscal sponsor to apply?

No. Pathfinder will arrange fiscal sponsorship for your group. Can I participate in Pathfinder more than once? Yes!

If you've been through Pathfinder or its precursor program, FSP, before, you're welcome to apply in future semesters to receive additional funding and mentorship. What happens if my mentor isn't a good fit? We take great care in pairing you with the right mentor for your group, considering a variety of different factors.

However, after the first three calls, you can express a preference to continue the program with a different mentor. How does Pathfinder relate to FSP and Coefficient Giving's university group funding? The Fieldbuilder Support Program (FSP) was a precursor program to Pathfinder, which now brings FSP's mentorship and Coefficient Giving's funding of AI safety groups under the same roof in order to better support organizers.

Previous participants in either of these programs are welcome to apply to Pathfinder going forward. Pathfinder is funded by a grant from Coefficient Giving (formerly known as Open Philanthropy), but run by Kairos. Coefficient Giving is not involved with running the program or evaluating applicants to it.

What happened to the Pathfinder Support Grants? Previously, the Pathfinder Support Grants provided funding without the mentorship aspects of Pathfinder. We now only fund groups with organizers in the Pathfinder program.

If your group previously relied on PSG for funding, encourage your organizers to apply to Pathfinder. What kind of groups does Pathfinder support? We support groups that are: Focused on AI safety—that is, large-scale risks from transformative AI .

This includes groups focused on technical safety, AI governance and policy, AI security, AI welfare, etc. For graduate or undergraduate students. This includes new groups that will be founded during the upcoming semester. What are Pathfinder's eligibility requirements?

Help lead or plan to found a university AI safety group, whether graduate or undergraduate. Have a strong interest in AI safety and enough knowledge of the field to explain core AI risk concerns to a beginner. Fellows can be based anywhere in the world.

If you meet these criteria, we'd encourage you to submit an application. Top applicants will be admitted to the fellowship. Can I apply if I'm not my group's lead organizer?

Yes, as long as you play a significant active role running the group—for example, taking a non-head position on the leadership team. Can multiple organizers from the same group apply? Yes.

While we usually don't select more than two fellows per group, we encourage everyone on your leadership team to apply. Please submit separate individual applications rather than applying as a group. What is the program's timeline?

Applications open: July 6 Applications close: July 28 Decisions announced: August 3 Kickoff events: August 6 (mentors) and August 7 (mentees) Mentor meetings: Weekly starting August 8 at times that work for you Coffee chats: Weekly starting August 10 at times that work for you Workshops: Starting August 12 Starter funding ($500): August 6 Budget requests due: August 21 Funding decisions: September 2 (expedited available on request) These dates are preliminary and may still change.

Is the Pathfinder Fellowship paid? Graduate student fellows may receive a stipend to support their organizing time. Undergraduates are not eligible for this stipend.

All Pathfinder fellows can receive funding for group expenses. How do we receive funding? For most groups, Pathfinder will arrange fiscal sponsorship, meaning a nonprofit will "adopt" you and provide a spending-capped credit card funded by Kairos.

This helps avoid any tax complications of receiving the money personally, and provides you with an easy way to track your spending. Groups with existing legal entities will instead receive grants. Do I need a fiscal sponsor to apply?

No. Pathfinder will arrange fiscal sponsorship for your group. Can I participate in Pathfinder more than once? Yes!

If you've been through Pathfinder or its precursor program, FSP, before, you're welcome to apply in future semesters to receive additional funding and mentorship. What happens if my mentor isn't a good fit? We take great care in pairing you with the right mentor for your group, considering a variety of different factors.

However, after the first three calls, you can express a preference to continue the program with a different mentor. How does Pathfinder relate to FSP and Coefficient Giving's university group funding? The Fieldbuilder Support Program (FSP) was a precursor program to Pathfinder, which now brings FSP's mentorship and Coefficient Giving's funding of AI safety groups under the same roof in order to better support organizers.

Previous participants in either of these programs are welcome to apply to Pathfinder going forward. Pathfinder is funded by a grant from Coefficient Giving (formerly known as Open Philanthropy), but run by Kairos. Coefficient Giving is not involved with running the program or evaluating applicants to it.

What happened to the Pathfinder Support Grants? Previously, the Pathfinder Support Grants provided funding without the mentorship aspects of Pathfinder. We now only fund groups with organizers in the Pathfinder program.

If your group previously relied on PSG for funding, encourage your organizers to apply to Pathfinder. The Pathfinder Fellowship is run by Kairos , a nonprofit whose mission is to help society navigate the transition to transformative AI .

In addition to Pathfinder, we run several other programs: The Supervised Program for Alignment Research (SPAR) , which provides research opportunities for early-career students and professionals looking to The Generator Residency , a 3-month residency where residents pitch, build, and ship projects that build capacity and infrastructure across the AI safety ecosystem.

The Global Challenges Project , a series of intensive three-day workshops for students on how to think critically about AI safety and pathfinder@kairos-project. org .