Costs (incl. accommodation and vegan food) covered by EA Germany, travel subsidies available if needed
COVID policy: All attendees need to be fully vaccinated and self-tested before arrival.
Content
Purpose: We want to provide a space for participants to
connect with like-minded people from their city and region and find advisors, collaborators and friends
share ideas, discuss and make progress on their plans to do more good (through their careers, volunteering or donations)
EA Content
We will invite a few experts to cover some of the most pressing problems to help inform participants considering entering those fields. Participants are encouraged to contribute content.
You can suggest specific content in the application form – we will do our best to make it possible.
There will be structured content such as talks & workshops and unstructured, informal discussions and 1-1 conversations (we can help you find the right people if you want). Here's some content from past retreats to get an impression.
All sessions are optional. If you feel like you are not learning or contributing to a session, you are always free to do something else.
Space to relax and connect
During the afternoon breaks and in the evenings, there will be space for fun activities, to relax and get to know each other on a more personal level – feel free to contribute content unrelated to Effective Altruism.
These retreats usually receive very positive participant feedback. Previous retreats such as the EA Unconferences have been rated 8.7 - 9.3/10 on average. To get a better impression, see these photos from a previous German EA retreat (different venue) and this video:
For whom?
We expect this retreat to be most beneficial for people who:
Are familiar with the basics of EA
If you are very new to EA, we recommend you first check out some of the online resources (effectivealtruism.org and 80000hours.org) and if you can, join a local or virtual EA event first. If you’re unsure, please err on the side of applying!
Share the Guiding Principles of EA: Commitment to Help Others, Scientific Mindset, Openness, Integrity, Collaborative Spirit
Understand and speak English (no need to be perfect, though!)
Live in Eastern Germany (or somehow feel connected to Berlin/Eastern Germany). If you live in North, West or South Germany, we recommend you have a look at our sister events near Hannover and near Stuttgart on 20-22 January.
Participants do not need to:
Know everything & everyone (this might be particularly valuable if you’re not yet well-connected in the EA community)
Already work in EA cause areas, or even know what you would like to work on (this can be particularly helpful if you’re undecided about your career & life plans)
Speak German (everyone speaks English)
Give a talk/workshop (program contributions are encouraged but not required)
The EA community benefits from a diversity of backgrounds and beliefs, so non-German speakers and people from underrepresented groups are particularly encouraged to apply.
The youth hostel may not be the prettiest building, but it has all we need and plenty of space, and the surroundings are really nice: It’s located in a forest right at the lakeside, easy to reach by public transport but still feels far away from noisy Berlin.
Accommodation: Choice between a shared four-person room at the venue (costs covered) or book your own accommodation nearby (at your own cost). We recommend staying at the venue or close by (<10min), but Berliners can also sleep at home and commute if they prefer.
Getting there
Get to Berlin: We found rome2rio.com useful to compare travel options. Train is usually fastest (bahn.de, flixtrain.de), bus usually takes a bit longer but is cheaper (flixbus.de)
Get to the venue: Trains leave from Berlin central station every 10 min and take 30 min
I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.
Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:
* Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
* NEST is an opinionated ideas-fi...
This post presents the executive summary from Giving What We Can’s impact evaluation for 2025. At the end of this post we share links to more information, including the full report and...
