Following our recent poll, we have decided on the locations of the next three EA Impact Hubs: They will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria from 13 July to 27 August; in Porto, Portugal from 28 August to 10 October; and in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 11 October to (at least) 11 December 2026. Apply to join any of the Hubs by clicking the links.

What are Impact Hubs?

Impact Hubs are affordable, temporary coworking and coliving setups for EAs and impact-focused people. The idea is to make it easier to do focused work and build connections with other EAs without having to be in an expensive EA hub like London or SF. Nobody has to pay or gets paid, and there is no mandatory schedule; many participants work or study remotely on weekdays and take part in volunteer-organised community activities in the evenings and on weekends. We've been running our first Impact Hub in Da Nang, Vietnam with 25 total participants since February and it's gone very well. People especially liked the affordability, coliving structure, EA group culture, scheduled and spontaneous group activities, coworking ease, and potential to make new friends fast. See here for a short and here for a slightly longer review of what Da Nang has been like.

The hubs are aimed at anyone doing or planning to do impact-focused work who wants to spend some time living and working alongside others who care about doing good thoughtfully. In Da Nang, we have had people working in cause areas like animal welfare, s-risks, AI safety, mental health, and longtermism, while others worked on personal projects or were upskilling or exploring career changes. See some of their profiles here.

Why these cities?

In our recent poll, we asked people to vote for which locations they'd be likely to join if a hub took place there, and where they could see themselves staying long-term if things went well (informed by the compiled city information and ranking mechanism on cities.moiri.dev). We received 27 responses, you can see the results for short-term and long-term interest here.

Overall, the wider community showed a significant interest in Southeast Asia, while the inner community (people who joined the Da Nang Hub) showed more interest in European cities. Taking all the information from the poll and the prefrences of the organising group as well as seasonal changes like climate and air quality into account, we have made the decision to start with two of the most favoured cities in Europe based on the Da Nang cohort's preferences for potential long-term locations to try out, followed by a hub in the winner of the overall vote, Chiang Mai. Many of the organisers are looking for a place to settle for 12+ months and might start a more permanent hub in one of the locations if they like them enough, starting 2027.

Some of the reasons people voted for these cities in particular:

Sofia

• one of the two most affordable EU capitals (~€1200/month cost of living)
• pleasant architecture and lots of green space
• connected to the rest of the Balkans

Porto

• cheaper than Lisbon but arguably equally nice
• highly walkable and historic
• sunny and a nice 15–24 °C in Sep–Oct

Chiang Mai

• very cheap compared to Europe (~€700/month cost of living)
• one of the best digital nomad scenes in the world with lots of coworking options
• lush surroundings, easily available vegan food

What now?

If you're thinking about joining any of the three hubs, please apply (Sofia, Porto, Chiang Mai)! You don't need to be certain that you'll actually come, and you can join for only part of any hub if you like (no need to apply if you only plan to come for a few days or you already live there). The application is more a formality rather than a rigorous evaluation, to get to know the people who might join and make sure they have at least a basic understanding of EA; we don't expect to reject many applicants. We will keep reviewing all applications, even on short notice during the hubs.

To coordinate with others (e.g. on housing), be informed about future hubs, and connect with other interested people, please join the Impact Hubs Discord. Feel free to ask questions there or here in the comments.