craschworks

The Seasteading Institute (TSI) is a non-profit organization with the mission of furthering the establishment of permanent, autonomous ocean communities. In opening a new frontier, we will improve the human condition worldwide by allowing people to experiment with new forms of government. We were recently covered in Wired and The Sunday Times, and have received $500,000 of initial funding from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in companies such as LinkedIn and Facebook. More information is available at http://www.seasteading.org.

TSI’s Event Project Manager will be responsible for making sure key TSI events happen smoothly, on time, and within budget. This will largely entail in-the-trenches project management and planning work. Key projects will include the planning and execution of our 2009 Annual Conference (~100 attendees) and our Ephemerisle floating festival (~30-300 attendees), which are being held the week of September 28th. Ephemerisle is a particularly unique event — think Burning Man literally floating on the water, and you will have an idea of the unusual logistical and planning challenges this presents.

We want someone who is highly autonomous, detail-oriented, passionate about what we’re doing, and loves a challenge. Seriously — we’re a four-person startup, and honestly, we’re a little behind schedule hiring for this role. And we’re asking you to plan a floating Burning Man, for crying out loud. If all this makes you say “awesome! I can work with cool people and help start a world-changing movement!”, then consider applying! If this makes you shrug and say “what’s Burning Man? I’m sure my all my experience planning dinner parties will carry me through”, this might not be the role for you.

This is paid, temporary position from now until mid-October. Candidates must be available to start immediately. It will be at least half-time up until the events, and at least full-time the week before and during the events. The role is located in downtown Palo Alto, CA, a 3-minute walk from the University Avenue CalTrain stop.

Specific responsibilities will include:

* Creating detailed project plans: Defining tasks, setting milestones, assigning ownership, identifying dependencies, and so on
* Understanding and managing projects’ critical paths
* Tracking project execution
* Proactively identifying risks to schedule, budget, or productivity
* Creating and implementing mitigation plans for those risks
* Reporting of project status to teammates and TSI Executive Staff
* Running project meetings: Agendas, notes, and action items
* Coordinating event volunteers
* Finding and securing event venues, caterers, etc.
* Negotiating good rates with vendors
* Defining event schedules
* Obtaining proper event insurnace
* Documentation of event plans for use by future planners
* Managing conference operations and volunteers during the 2009 Annual Conference

Interested candidates should send a resume and a brief statement describing their interest in the role to [email protected].