About

Hi, I'm Callaway.

This site is intended to be a number of things at once: a blog, a climbing log, and a portfolio among them. I'd love if it managed to start discussion and prompt others to think and climb and create, themselves. If you ever want to comment on, disagree with, or contribute to a project, please feel free to reach out.

A brief bio, if by chance you've stumbled upon this without meeting me first: I grew up in Virginia, but my adult life has been split between the United States, Kyrgyzstan, and the United Kingdom. My wife and I will be based in London as of September 2026; after that, who knows?

I'm a practising Christian, which shapes my attitudes to all three of my focus areas at present: mountaineering and climbing; thinking about technology (artificial intelligence in particular); and pursuing a relationship-based vision of international development with Vision Kyrgyzstan, which I co-founded with my friend Aziz in 2019. I'm fascinated by the narratives that shape countries and communities. My Fulbright work in Kyrgyzstan in 2021–22 was a mix of oral history and development policy. I worked to understand the past and present of outdoor recreation in Central Asia so I could catch a glimpse of its future as well. I followed on that with my master's dissertation, which examined physical risk and economic and social precarity in Nepal's high-altitude economy. Now at last, that glimpse I caught ~4 years ago has led me on my present track of training to take the KMGA entrance exam at some point in the next few years. My hope is to build on those relationships and continue to serve as a bridge and interpreter between American, European, and Central Asian athletes, guides, and amateurs alike.

Other past professional engagements include economic policy work at UN ESCAP in Almaty, tech and policy consulting at Aurora Energy Research in Austin, Texas, and independent involvement with other studies and policy papers, particularly around artificial intelligence and data centres. Languages: fluent English, Russian, Spanish; acceptable Kyrgyz, Ukrainian, Chinese; faltering French, Japanese.

On AI use

I enjoy working with AI models, and doing so has helped me understand myself and other human beings better as well. Reasonable people can disagree, and I am open to conversations about why I engage the technology and what it means to do so ethically and with dignity. Please write to me if you're curious, critical, or anything else.

I make the following three promises with regard to AI use on this site:

• All writing is my own, unless explicitly marked otherwise. While I may ask for LLM assistance in editing or proof-reading, all changes to published text are made by hand.
• Writing by or quotes from other humans or LLMs will be fully attributed. (See, for example, the Central Asia mountaineering database).
• Similarly, I respond to all written communications myself.

Contact

I prefer e-mail to social media; write me at: [email protected]. If the lack of a "like" button on my photography posts stalks your nightmares, follow me at @callaway.sprinkle on Instagram. If you read something on the site and have a burning desire to comment, drop a word to me! I'd be happy to connect.