Non-Trivial Fellowship
A proposal that aims to enhance biosecurity with new regulations in private labs
Project Details / Background
As one of 160 others selected out of ~10,000 applicants,
I participated in the Non-Trivial Fellowship's July 2024 cohort. This program allowed me to spend
time doing what I normally do (going down rabbit holes) in addition to having the chance to make an
impact. For the global issue I chose to address, I selected biosecurity, not only because of my
interest in public health, global well-being and medicine, but also due to the recent COVID-19
pandemic. The more I looked into it, the more I realised how few laws and regulations existed
for biolabs. One thing that struck me was the presence of private biolabs. I explain more in my
proposal linked below:
The Proposal
The Presentation
This 8-week long fellowship taught me so much more than
I could have ever imagined. It started with being lessons on rationality and effective
altruism, and I hope I am correct in saying that I came out the other side a better thinker, and
more importantly, a better person. Massive thank you to my facilitators Rhea and Noah (as well
as feedback wizard Schäfer) who guided
me through this fellowship and not only helped me on the journey of writing my proposal, but
who encouraged me to use this opportunity to take a deep dive into the topic of biosecurity. I
would also like to thank Mr Dan Greene for hopping on a call with me a few weeks ago - I gained
so much real-world insight and believe that the expert suggestions really did help refine my plan.
I am ever so grateful for this opportunity: to have met so many like-minded people, to
engage with some of the most knowledgeable people in the world, to have had the chance
to work on something so much bigger than myself.