The Challenges of Making a Local Group Attractive

In this episode of 80k After Hours, Rob Wiblin interviews Kuhan Jeyapragasan about effective altruism university groups.

From 2015 to 2020, Kuhan did an undergrad and then a master's in maths and computer science at Stanford — and did a lot to organise and improve the EA group on campus.

Links to learn more, highlights and full transcript.

Rob and Kuhan cover:

• The challenges of making a group appealing and accepting of everyone
• The concrete things Kuhan did to grow the successful Stanford EA group
• Whether local groups are turning off some people who should be interested in effective altruism, and what they could do differently
• Lessons Kuhan learned from Stanford EA
• The Stanford Existential Risks Initiative (SERI)

Who this episode is for:

• People already involved in EA university groups
• People interested in getting involved in EA university groups

Who this episode isn’t for:

• People who’ve never heard of ‘effective altruism groups’
• People who’ve never heard of ‘effective altruism’
• People who’ve never heard of ‘university’

Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ryan Kessler
Transcriptions: Katy Moore