Overview
At Carreras con Impacto (CCI), we are dedicated to identifying and engaging high-potential students across Latin America, equipping them with the knowledge, tools, and mentorship needed to pursue careers focused on catastrophic and existential risks. Our programs empower students to make a significant impact in areas such as AI risk reduction, biosecurity, and global catastrophic risks, aligning their career paths with the most pressing global challenges.
Program Phases
Virtual Programs (Phase 1):
- 8-hour Introductory Course: Focused on maximizing career impact in the General Global Priority Problems.
- 16-hour Advanced Course: Delivered over 8 weeks, this course covers theoretical concepts, case studies, and practical exercises related to Global Catastrophic Risks (GCRs).
Highlights (Virtual Programs):
- Applications Received: 1,449
- Accepted Applications: 351
- Program Completion Rate: 67.23%
- Likelihood to Recommend: 9.4

Mentorship Program (Phase 2):
After the first phase, the students could send a project proposal. A 14-week personalized mentorship initiative where selected students from Phase 1 develop specific projects, such as policy proposals or research papers, within an organized mentoring program.
Highlights (First Cohort):
- Project Proposals Received: 62
- Accepted Projects: 10
- Mentorship Areas: Artificial Intelligence (3), Biosecurity (2), Communication (3), Cause Prioritization (1), Nuclear Weapons (1)
- Support Network: 35 organizations and individuals
- Impact Evaluation Score: 9/10
- Likelihood to Recommend: 9.2
- Counterfactual:
- 63.6% of the mentee’s wouldn’t have learned about Cause Prioritization and/or Global Catastrophic Risks.
- 72.7% of the mentees would not carry out their individual project if it wasn’t for Carreras con Impacto.



Mentees were asked to rate the level el agreement from 1 to 10 to a series of sentences intended to evaluate the Community Health Status of Carreras con Impacto. Overall, we received a Perfect Score 10/10.
- “Carreras con Impacto is a place where I could express my opinion freely”
- “Carreras con Impacto is a place where I felt safe and respected”
- “Carreras con Impacto responded efficiently to my questions and concerns“
- “Carreras con Impacto is an organization committed to continuous improvement”
- “My facilitators/mentors reflect the values of Carreras con Impacto as an organization.”
Mentorship Project Results
After 14 weeks with a minimum commitment of 10 hours per week, the students work from the definition of the question to a specific product and a report. The following projects are published on this forum and in both English and Spanish on our webpage:
- Biosafety and Biosecurity:
- Nuclear Conflicts:
- Global Development:
- Artificial Intelligence:
- Artificial Intelligence and Biometric Data Protection in Latin America: Lessons from the European Union – Ana Sofía Jimenez
- Open-Source Replication of Decomposition of Language Models with Dictionary Learning – (Post in progress) Fernando Avalos
- Alumni Highlight:
Fernando has been accepted into the ML4Good program and is Co-founder of the AI Safety Initiative Colombia.
- Bridging the Compute Divide: Evaluating NAIRR’s Role in Democratizing AI Research and Development – (Post in progress) Jose Gelvez
- Alumni Highlight:
Jose is a Co-founder of the AI Safety Initiative Colombia.
- Communication:
Congratulations on achieving some very impressive results with Carreras con Impacto, and with great female representation too! It would be interesting to read a follow-up report in 6-12 months to see what the more long-term impact of the program has been.
Keep up the great work! :)
Hello Mel!
Thank you, we believe sharing our results is not only a way to share with the community our efforts, but also serves as an incentive for the mentees to keep up the good work.
As I replied to Joseph, we are still running the second cohort of this first iteration of the mentorship program. We expect to share the results of this second cohort in ~one month from now, so you’ll be hearing (or reading) from us sooner rather than later.
Please, feel free to join us to our next “Final Projects Presentation Event” on September 14th at 9 am (Mexico City Time), we’d be happy to see you there.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rd-2gqzkoGN3v0Sqa1m9TpMwQlJq5wVZs