Kaleem

1974 karmaJoined Aug 2020Working (0-5 years)Agassiz, Cambridge, MA, USA

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Kaleem Ahmid. Entrepreneur in Residence at EV.

Previously a Community Builder at Northeastern and in Boston. Previously a Visiting Scholar at JHU Center for Health Security. EAGxBoston 2022 and EAGxNYC 2023 organiser.

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Things people have said to me about EA

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I enjoyed this a lot, thanks !

If someone knows/is able to put me in touch with Mehdi Hassan, I'd be SUPER grateful

Answer by KaleemFeb 09, 202422
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Looking for potential co-founders for an Effective Zakat org.

I'm exploring launching a new org which aims at redirecting zakat to effective charities. The whole plan is extremely speculative at the moment (I'm currently funded to explore this idea, including looking for potential co-founders). I'm open to people from different backgrounds, locations, and experience levels. Ideally you'd be someone who is Muslim and has a decent amount of theological understanding around zakat, or have a history of working in Islamic Philanthropy. Fluent Arabic speakers would be a huge plus.

FAW#2.

An interesting potentially high-impact intervention: banning dog meat production/trade in Indonesia.

I was surprised to find out that Indonesia produces/consumes ~1M dogs per year, given that it's ~89% Muslim, and dogs are absolutely not permissible to consume in Islam. For context, very quick googling and estimating leads me to believe that the number of dogs killed per year in Indonesia is ~half the number of cows consumed in Indonesia per year (nowhere near the ~700M chickens per year though).

I'd assume it'd be WAY easier to help push through a dog meat ban in Indonesia than it would be to get people to eat less chicken or beef? I know there are already quite a few orgs working for dog meat bans across all of Asia, and (at least one) working in some capacity towards a ban in Indonesia (which OP has mad a small grant to, but I don't think it was specifically for this issue). This could be a very cost effective opportunity in terms of $/animal saved, given that I assume there'd be quite a lot of domestic and international support.

Leonie and Akhil, are there any results from this would could be shared?

This does answer the question and is much appreciated! Do you have any sources I can cite (other than the paper linked in your response) ?

I don't know what price or % of daily income would be unaffordable, but I think it would be very useful to know what that was so that I could use the number in a question to a theological authority.

I assume the standard that would be more widely useful would be "not available in local markets at any price".

yeah it answers the question - although I think for the purposes of leaning on this answer I'd probably want someone/something with reputation on the subject (no offence intended).

The point I'm trying to clarify is whether or not funding e.g. AMF means that people are getting something which they couldn't get otherwise. I don't think the idea that they might not choose to purchase them even if they're available is necessarily good enough in this instance.

The reason behind the question is to see whether or not I can apply the reasoning behind the ruling that "yes you can give zakat to a charity which provides free organ transplants to people who can't afford them" to something like AMF.

Wow, this is amazing news. Thank you so much for all the hard work that must have gone into writing this book, I can’t wait to read it !

(Small, very reluctant point of correction: I think unfortunately, “The good it promises, the harm it does” is probably the first book focusing on EA and FAW (assuming we don’t consider Animal Liberation to be a book about EA, which I think is fair)).

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