​𝚖𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚒-𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚕 · 𝚖𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚒-𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕 · 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎-𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚐

​A real-time pulse check for a place-based AI future.

​AI conversation in BC has been too safe, too surface, and too centered around extractive voices. On May 6, we shift the frequency.

​We're holding space for the builders, organizers, technologists, and stewards shaping a different kind of BC + AI narrative – one rooted in land, culture, equity, and experimentation.

​What This Really Is

​A construction site walkthrough. A gathering of the ones doing the real work – often unseen, unpaid, uninvited.

​This livestream marks the public activation of the BC + AI Ecosystem initiative, a cross-province collaborative advancing values-aligned AI. It's also a tactical response to the increasing consolidation of AI narrative, funding, and policy influence by actors who speak inclusion but practice extraction.

​We're logging on to:

• ​Speak plainly about what's alive in this moment

• ​Share the edges of what's being prototyped in basements, studios, classrooms, and council circles

• ​Build the plane mid-flight – and publish the blueprint

​BC's Unique Intelligence

​This province isn't just a place – it's a worldview. We've trained AI on street photography from East Van archives and taught it to dream in puddle light.

​We've built 3D pipelines for the Vegas Sphere... from a parking lot, Apple Vision headsets on, dogs barking in the background.

​We've got people using ML to track salmon migrations, map Indigenous territories, and resurrect erased languages.

​From the Fraser Valley to the Skeena, something is taking root:

• ​AI not as disruption, but as disruption repair

• ​Tech not for scale, but for situated service

• ​Community not as audience, but as co-authors of infrastructure

​What To Expect

• ​Provincial Pulse Check: Honest assessment of where we stand

• ​Live Dispatches: From creators and researchers working at the edges

• ​Ecosystem Mapping: Who's building, who's organizing, who's holding the ethical line

• ​Open-Floor Exchange: Because the smartest ideas don't come from keynotes

​You'll hear from creatives training AI on cultural archives, educators building decolonial data futures, technologists resisting extractive systems, and communities using machine learning for language revitalization, land defense, and creative liberation.

​

​Who Should Tune In

​This is not for everyone. But it is for:

• ​The ones tired of extractive acceleration

• ​The ones prototyping permissionless projects in the shadows

• ​The ones wondering if this AI moment can still be redirected toward land, story, justice, and joy

• ​Anyone building tools outside the funding spotlight

• ​Those holding space for community data sovereignty

​What Comes Next

​This is a signal boost for an already-emerging infrastructure:

• ​A province-wide coalition of community labs, cultural tech orgs, and rogue academics

• ​A growing archive of open-source tools, policy briefings, and shared codebases

• ​A new operating system for how we govern, make, and relate to intelligent systems—from the forest floor to the server stack

​We're establishing the pattern for what comes next.

​Building a Grassroots AI Community of Practice

​Read the Research →
Download Full PDF →

​UBC's BC Studies Journal has published a case study on the Vancouver AI Community and BC + AI Ecosystem.

​Loose grip. Tight ship. No panels. No posturing. Just presence.