Kairos Project

Kairos AI Project, Inc. is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in October 2024 to accelerate talent development in AI safety and AI policy. The organization was co-founded by Agustín Covarrubias and Neav Topaz, who spun out from prior work supporting AI safety communities at the Center for Effective Altruism and related organizations. Rebecca Baron serves as Founding Generalist, handling operations and grantmaking logistics. Kairos serves as the institutional home for two flagship programs. The Pathfinder Fellowship supports organizers of university AI safety and policy groups worldwide by providing startup funding, mentorship from experienced organizers, a peer community, and access to curriculum resources. Fiscal sponsorship for fellow groups is arranged through BERI (Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative). As of Fall 2025, Pathfinder supported 65 fellows across 51 universities in 11 countries. Pathfinder replaced and integrated both Open Philanthropy's University Organizer Fellowship and Kairos's earlier Fieldbuilder Support Program (FSP). SPAR (Supervised Program for Alignment Research) is a virtual, part-time research fellowship pairing early-career individuals with experienced AI safety researchers for 3-month projects in technical and governance areas. SPAR is described as the largest research fellowship focused on risks from advanced AI. As of Fall 2025, SPAR ran 80 projects with 309 mentees across 55 countries. Research from SPAR has been published at NeurIPS and ICML and covered by TIME. Kairos also runs the Global Challenges Project (GCP) and OASIS workshops, in-person sessions for university organizers in the Bay Area. Cumulatively, Kairos reports supporting 120+ organizers, incubating 40+ AI safety groups, and reaching 800+ people. In February 2025, Open Philanthropy announced a grant of $886,285 to Kairos to support AI safety university group programming. The organization operates with a lean core team and plans to expand significantly by 2027.