KHIPU and Deep Indaba struggle to raise funds; Jeff Dean and NandoDF rally AI companies to help
JeffDean · x · 2026-10-13
Google chief scientist Jeff Dean says he has personally supported Khipu.AI and Deep Indaba through his family foundation and encouraged Google to back them, with Discovery Loop now also sponsoring.
In the quoted post, NandoDF (VP of research at Google DeepMind) notes that a decade of fundraising for these Africa and Latin America AI community events has been successful, but this year money is unusually hard to raise, and he calls on AI companies to support them. KHIPU 2027 runs April 5–9 at the University of São Paulo; since 2019 it has trained 1,200+ researchers and students, admits 500+ attendees per edition from 1,000+ applicants, and has run 30+ grassroots events across ten countries. The thread highlights funding pressure on nonprofit AI research communities during an industry tightening cycle.
Related event: Jeff Dean Backs African and Latin American AI Events Amid Funding Slump(4 posts)→
More from Companies & People
- Stanford Autonomous Systems Lab head promoted to Full Professor of Aeronautics — drmapavone · 2026-10-13
- LinkedIn replaces APM program with Associate Product Builders as 30% of PM jobs demand AI skills — aakashgupta · 2026-10-13
- Selling AI? Admit it's not 100% accurate — deals close faster with honest fallback terms — sujingshen · 2026-10-13
- Professor Builds Cinematic Visual Deep Learning Course Site, EECS 6322 Launches Winter 2027 — CSProfKGD · 2026-10-13
- Anthropic in final talks with NTT Data for first Japan data center in Osaka, $6.3B, up to 500MW — ns123abc · 2026-10-13
- Andrew Carr: everyone praises Alex while Nat's critical role goes ignored — andrew_n_carr · 2026-10-13