Supporting AI Safety Fieldbuilding in Mexico

Raising $24,000active

Support the growth of the AI Safety community in Mexico through field-building events, Spanish-language courses, and advocacy efforts.

Endorsed by

Jaime+2

Support the growth of the AI Safety community in Mexico through field-building events, Spanish-language courses, and advocacy efforts.

Endorsed by

Jaime+2

Project Details

About us:

AI Safety Mexico is the first nonprofit organization founded in 2025 to advance research, education, and responsible governance of artificial intelligence in Mexico. We work at the intersection of three communities, researchers, educators, and policymakers, to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed safely, aligned with human values, and attentive to the Mexican context. Our work combines open research, context-aware training, and collaboration with partner institutions. We operate as an all-volunteer, multidisciplinary team, and partner with national and international organizations that share our commitment to giving the Global South a voice of its own in the conversation about AI safety. We support a community of researchers, educators, and policymakers producing locally grounded knowledge, training new generations, and taking an active role in shaping regulatory frameworks to govern AI in Mexico.

About the Project:

This funding will support field-building events, Spanish-language safety and governance courses, and localized advocacy and coordination of the AI Safety community across Mexico.

1. Events: This funding will support logistics and planning costs associated with the two-day Mexico AI Safety Summit planned for November 2026 which will bring together 80 participants across industry, academia, government and civil society. We are also collaborating with AI Safety LATAM Organizers to host a regional conference in Latin America on AI Safety in 2027. These events will provide technical training for border areas and governance, focus on specialized training in key areas such as alignment, assessments, mechanistic interpretability, security and governance. And improve our community infrastructure to create collaborative bridges between Latin American researchers with the international AI Safety community and institutions.

Our student volunteers also plan to run quarterly meet-ups for AI Safety groups on university campuses across Mexico to spread awareness of AI Safety amongst students in computer science and engineering.

2. Courses: This funding will support continued development and implementation of our courses and trainings on AI Safety to grow Mexico’s talent pipeline and access to Spanish-language educational resources. We aim to run 5 cohorts which would train 50 participants on technical AI safety and AI governance topics. Our mentors would support course alumni in applying for further global opportunities such as SPAR or MATS fellowships, BlueDot Impact grants and courses, and international PhD programs.

3. Advocacy and Coordination: This funding will support the team leading coordination efforts amongst the AI ecosystem in Mexico with a focus on academic research and student engagement, industry-outreach, government policy advising, and raising public awareness. It will also support our coordination efforts with leading AI Safety organizations in Latin America such as BAISH to ensure Mexican expertise is elevated across the Global South and beyond. As well as, these resources will expand the pool of AI Safety talent in Mexico as we aim to onboard at least 5 additional volunteers, advisors, and mentors to help grow our membership and scale the organization’s impact. Part of the grant will also allow our team to sponsor Mexican experts to attend international events related to AI Safety as speakers, championing historically under-represented Mexican perspectives within global safety work. This funding will also support the creation of Spanish-language short-form video and infographic content on AI Safety that will be distributed via our Spotify podcast, YouTube channel, and Instagram.

Past Projects:

We co-hosted the 2026 Global South AI Safety Hackathon in collaboration with Apart Research which included 1,515 sign-ups and 216 submitted projects on technical AI safety, AI governance, and regional solutions to AI risks and challenges. AI Safety Mexico sponsored two in-person hubs for the weekend hackathon in Merida and Guadalajara and our teams submitted 19 projects.
We supported the creation of VIGÍA, the first platform mapping AI policy and governance in Mexico, which won special recognition at the European Network for AI Safety’s AI Safety Collab in 2025 for its empirical research and automated data collection to inform domestic regulation and risk mapping.

Theory of Impact

AI Safety Mexico will identify and train talent for global alignment work and build the technical and governance foundations Mexican policymakers need to make informed decisions about AI deployment. Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world (134 million people) and the second-largest economy in Latin America, with a fast-growing nearshoring and tech sector. Our nascent domestic AI safety research capacity lacks dedicated funding, technical up-skilling, and community coordination. To combat power concentration and talent diversion to hubs like Silicon Valley and the UK, we propose this multi-disciplinary project which will grow Mexico’s AI Safety community and anchor our research and advocacy efforts on the global stage. At a fraction of the cost of global AI hubs, this proposal leverages events, courses, advocacy, and coordination efforts to maximize impact and cost-effectiveness. Mexico is legislating on AI now, in a regulatory vacuum, with almost no domestic technical expertise feeding into the process, and whatever Mexico adopts carries weight across the Spanish-speaking world. We’re producing auditable public research and publications to combat this. Advocacy and governance capacity built in Mexico is not only a national agenda; it is leverage over how 500 million Spanish speakers end up regulating frontier AI. This project scales our ability to ensure Mexican perspectives are brought into global safety work.

People

Janeth Valdivia

Team Member

Grants Received

Add grant

2026 Global South Hackathon-México Hubs Ops & CateringAmount hidden

from Schmidt sciences & Apart Research

$****

Funding Asks

grantmaking.ai Launch Round

Applied

Minimum

$24,000

Ideal

$36,000

How the money will be spent

$14,000: Events This funds venue rental, catering, A/V equipment, event materials, and logistical support for the two-day Mexico AI Safety Summit, convening 80 researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders. It also covers AI Safety Mexico’s co-organizing costs for the 2026 LatAm Regional AI Safety Conference. $4,000 of this amount is explicitly earmarked as travel micro-grants to bring promising Mexican researchers or program alumni to present original work at international forums such as EAGx or other global alignment workshops.

$5,000: Courses This funding directly supports the execution of 5 technical alignment and governance trainings, reaching 50 participants across Mexico. The allocation covers Spanish curriculum development, platform hosting, and small stipends for course instructors and mentors who conduct student evaluations and mentoring. It also provides micro-grants for workshop logistics and technical materials for our AI Safety student clubs at the University of Guadalajara and Yucatan Polytechnic, ensuring a continuous talent pipeline into global programs.

$5,000: Advocacy and Coordination This funding supports operations and team capacity to expand the reach of our work, onboard 5 new team members, and sponsor travel to international AI Safety events.

Total Request: $24,000

Discussion

Tzu Kit ChanEndorsement11d

I spent a total of 5hrs mentoring this bunch, value-aligned and willing to do the work, (eg. recently, as evidenced by their involvement as organizer + mentor: https://apartresearch.com/sprints/global-south-ais-hackathon-2026-06-19-to-2026-06-21

Excited for their next (more-professionalized) chapter.

Marta KosmynaEndorsement5d

Signing on to help! AI Safety Mexico is coordinating much of the work that needs to be done in Mexico and Latin America more broadly.

Jaime RalduaEndorsement5d

I worked closely with Janeth and other AIS Mexico organizers on a couple of occasions. First, during a project I mentored in SPAR, where they were highly motivated and hardworking. Later, while coordinating the Apart Global South AI Safety Hackathon, we collaborated closely with eight other local hubs in the Global South. AI Safety Mexico, was one of the best local hubs. They were more proactive than average and highly focused on impact, specifically on reaching out to neglected audiences that could be very impactful to bring into AI Safety. I look forward to working more with them in the future.