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Varsha Venugopal

👤 Person
886 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Yeah.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Yeah.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

We borrowed some of their figures and adapted it by plugging the relevant data for our own context.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

By doing that, we estimate we can save one life for roughly every 100 extra children vaccinated.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So vaccinating 60 extra children, we save 0.6 statistical lives.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

Having said that, though, I realize we plugged into a previous model, which has recently changed in the GiveWell page.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So at that time, I think it's a 2017 model, we could save a child's life for maybe something in the region of $1,700.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

But I see the GiveWell top charities now are somewhere between $3,000 to $5,000 for every additional child's life saved.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So we need to go back and question that.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

That sounds reasonable, though now having the GiveWell model and we see that as the gold standard, we would rather follow that.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

On how the money gets spent on the program, given the early stage we are at, the funds that we raise now will...

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

play an important role in bringing down this cost per life saved for future work.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

And we see three main ways of doing that.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So one is the straightforward economies of scale.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

You add an additional district, it brings down the overall cost if we are not adding more office size, for instance.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

The other is process improvement.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

So for instance, we are currently hiring for a tech role, which we think...

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

for instance, can bring through some exponential increases in our efficiencies.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

There are also so many ways we are iterating our nomination survey and recruitment survey, which would allow for increased efficiencies.

80,000 Hours Podcast
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India

And the final is this process innovation, which is, I guess, still an area we need to explore further.