rico chandra

Entrepreneur, athlete, innovator, musician, and tinkerer. Co-founder of Arktis Radiation Detectors, Tugboat, and Ionic Wind

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

Arguably the most inspiring organisation on earth. Come join us!

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

🚀 We’re hiring: Science & Technology Leads at ARIA

As a Science & Technology Lead at ARIA, you won’t just support research, you’ll help shape it. You’ll work with Programme Directors and world-class partners to turn breakthrough ideas into reality.

This is a role for people who thrive in ambiguity, connect ideas across disciplines, and want to catalyse technologies that could transform industries — and the world.

We’re currently recruiting in the following opportunity spaces:
- Mathematics for Safe AI
- Nature Computes Better
- Trust Everything, Everywhere
- Smarter Robot Bodies

If you want to help turn today’s ambitious ideas into tomorrow’s breakthroughs, we’d love to hear from you.
👉 Apply here: https://t.co/b5gnZjE2AF

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

The impact could be enormous.
Image detecting pathogens & disease outbreaks. Imagine curbing food waste by avoiding rigid expiry dates.
Sign up on the webpage for updates.
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[rico chandra @unkenruf]

Disease can be detected through smell. Dogs can do it.
But digital olfaction (medical diagnostics based on smell) is still at the beginning.
@techclaire at @ARIA_research is building a £50m programme that could change the world.
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[ARIA @ARIA_research]

The world is rich with information hidden from human senses. Our latest opportunity space, Extending Our Perception, explores combining AI and sensors to create Hypersensory Intelligence to perceive reality in new ways + catalyse breakthroughs across disciplines.

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

Calling all aerospace test sites, testing agencies, and consultants:
@ARIA_research's £50 million Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme is developing stratospheric aircraft, capable of powering communications payloads.
This RFP is for testing facilities & support expertise

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

🚀 We’re looking for partners for ARIA’s Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme, which focuses on de-risking low-cost, long-endurance, high-altitude aircraft to enable scalable, regional communications.

We need:
- Aerospace test sites & facilities
- Field testing support & consultancy
- Independent verification & validation

Help teams safely fly experimental platforms, maintain station above commercial aviation, and pass the programme’s Final Exam: continuously delivering 300W to a 20kg payload for a full week.

Deadline: 22 May (14:00 BST)

Find out more: https://t.co/reMIWFwxBl

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

Here's an opportunity to join @ARIA_research !

[Nora Ammann @AmmannNora]

In related news… I’m building out a tiger team to pursue this mission with me! 🦸

I’m looking for people who are mission-driven, technically deep, and comfortable moving between formal methods, programming languages, AI, AI safety, and cybersecurity.

[Nora Ammann @AmmannNora]

I’ve recently accepted the Programme Director role at ARIA, taking over from davidad in running the Safeguarded AI programme.

🧵 about the programme’s strategic vision + our upcoming funding efforts in cybersecurity + we're hiring!

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

@davidad @AmmannNora Congratulations! To your success, @AmmannNora !

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

Full proposals are now open for our Universal Fabricators programme.

Biology has proven that proteins can produce materials with almost any function from only locally abundant molecules – yet today, our use of proteins is mostly limited to drugs and enzymes.

Backed by £50m and led by Ivan Jayapurna, the programme will leverage breakthroughs in protein engineering + build a new, interdisciplinary community that can harness proteins to produce a functionally universal range of materials at scale.

We’d like that community to consist of experts in protein engineering, self assembly, complex matter physics, inorganic materials engineering, process engineering, and reactor design. They’ll be challenged to develop scalable processes that use proteins to template the assembly of inorganic + composite materials with structures that can’t currently be mass manufactured.

Submit your proposal by 5 May: https://t.co/87woAy9Fc5

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

Can you help the Creators funded by @ARIA_research translate their breakthroughs into socio-economic returns?
--> Check out our call for proposals for Activation Partners

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

Our call for Activation Partners cohort 2 is now live. 🚀

We're looking for 8-10 new partners to accelerate breakthrough science translation across the UK — with an expanded focus on bringing advanced AI capabilities, including AI Scientist systems, into our spaces.

Join a webinar on 15 April to find out more: https://t.co/DUYeAMpP0n

Apply before 21 May: https://t.co/P2LxAZzhbS

[Pranay Shah @Pranay_Shahh]

We're hiring for someone to help write the ARIA playbook 🚀

We're looking for a 'Special Projects Manager (Science & Tech)' to create the projects, initiatives, and ecosystems to ensure we're pursuing the boldest scientific ideas that reach the real world.

Learn more below👇

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

Rethinking compute and rewiring plant immunity: Our March update is live🚀

Dive into this month’s updates, including:
- The latest from ARIA, including funding, events, and RFPs
- A deep-dive into @NormalComputing world-first thermodynamic computing chip
- A Q&A with Philip Carella at @JohnInnesCentre, who is leading an opportunity seed project within our Programmable Plants opportunity space, working to rewire plants’ immunity to better fight pathogens
- Recommended reads –from using AI systems to optimise protein production to social networks for AI Scientists

Read the full piece and subscribe to get our monthly updates directly to your inbox: https://t.co/ajJp9Wefv8

[alex @ObadiaAlex]

Applications for our first wave of funding close Mar 24th, check out our Call for Proposals document to learn more, and apply before the deadline!

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

My prediction? This will get very big very fast. Be prepared to run with lightning speed

[alex @ObadiaAlex]

People seem to be arriving at a similar conclusion from various angles:
- AGI may not emerge as a monolith, but as a distributed "patchwork" system of coordinating sub-AGI agents [1]
- Static benchmarks aren't enough; we need multi-agent ones to capture emergent risks and capabilities [2]
- As creation costs go to zero, human verification bandwidth becomes the ultimate economic bottleneck, making verification infrastructure one of the most important public goods for the AI era [3]
- Automated proof-generation and verification can act as the unlock for this bottleneck [4]
- New kinds of strategic interactions between agents are emerging, reaching cooperative "program equilibria" inaccessible in traditional settings [5]
- Coasean transaction costs are about to collapse, changing our society [6]

There is an elephant here that we're all touching. Our @ARIA_research initial £50m r&d programme Scaling Trust is our unifying thesis, on the trust infrastructure needed for an agentic world and how to steer us there.

Before we set out on our journey over the next ~3ish years, we're hiring an additional individual to complete our team. Your role will essentially be one of Technical Director, steering our efforts technically and co-owning our research and engineering agenda. You will be doing incredibly meaningful work, in a highly interdisciplinary environment, and at the cutting edge of a technology that is shaping up to be the most defining of our century, if not of humanity.

We are building for the highest possible impact. After all, this is what @ARIA_research is about, moonshot r&d projects that change the world. We want to build technology as impactful as the invention of the internet once was in another r&d programme at DARPA, to start new academic fields and academic lineages for the next century, and to catalyze lasting positive change for the world.

For the right person, this is a bat signal 🦇, few places will offer you as much leverage to effect positive change on the world, intellectual stimulation, and fun.

Join us! We want to onboard someone asap as we build out our initial portfolio, and are willing to move fast. Apply here: https://t.co/kjTgSecUq2

Any questions on the role, please shoot me a DM or reply in comment here!

---
[1] Distributional AGI Safety @weballergy @sebkrier @FranklinMatija et. al -- https://t.co/apRl6WZUcm
[2] Agents of Chaos @NatalieShapira et. al — https://t.co/T4xIkahcm2
[3] Some Simple Economics of AGI @ccatalini et. al — https://t.co/Oa1dTKWpu7
[4] When AI Writes the World's Software, Who Verifies It? @Leonard41111588 — https://t.co/dgMyby3tFl
[5] Evaluating LLMs in Open-Source Games @SwadeshSistla et. al — https://t.co/bTWFw4FMpt
[6] Coasean Bargaining at Scale @sebkrier — https://t.co/oNOsUUvvHh

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

The most exciting job I could think of

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

The search for ARIA’s next cohort of Programme Directors has begun 🚀

As an ARIA PD, you will design and actively manage a ~£50M R&D programme within or around our opportunity spaces with the goal of unlocking scientific and technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone.

There is no one way to be an ARIA PD – our existing cohorts come from a range of backgrounds, including academia, entrepreneurship, invention and industry, and have launched programmes in areas ranging from synthetic plants to multi-agent coordination to brain surgery-free neurotechnologies.

Full applications will open in August 2026 for a May 2027 start date – over the coming months we’ll be running webinars and in-person events across the UK, Europe, the US and Asia where you’ll get the chance to engage directly with the ARIA team and learn more about the opportunity.

Find out more about what it means to be a PD and register your interest to be the first to receive updates on the recruitment process: https://t.co/rGlDacvV28

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

…and we are live!

[ARIA @ARIA_research]

Could you help unlock a digital infrastructure layer between the Earth and space?

Full proposals are open for our £50m-backed Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme – where we’re aiming to develop persistent, low-cost atmospheric platforms capable of meeting the demands of the burgeoning global telecommunications industry.

From lighter than air vehicles to aircraft exploiting unconventional approaches to remain aloft, we’re open to pursuing a range of pathways.

Our funding spans three areas:
- Enabling Technologies
- System Integration + Testing
- Deployment + Communications Architecture

Apply for funding by 2 April: https://t.co/gGi49DlxZx

[rico chandra @unkenruf]

🗓️ Submissions open TODAY.

⏳ Deadline: April 2. Don't miss the chance to shape the future of stratospheric tech.

Read the full details, and submit your proposal here: https://t.co/CU3fSjRLva

Check out @AlexLangeVC 's essay on why this matters: https://t.co/PbbDepWDZk

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[rico chandra @unkenruf]

ARIA £50m Enduring Atmospheric Platforms

🚨 @ARIA_research launched a £50m programme to change the future — and the submission window opens TODAY.

We are funding the next generation of long-endurance atmospheric platforms.

If you are in aerospace or hardware, read on 🧵👇
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[rico chandra @unkenruf]

We are not just looking for aircraft, but also enabling technologies.

If you or your team can enable long-endurance, high-altitude flight, we want to see your proposals. ✈️💡

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