Vancouver GenAI LLMs & Agent Dev Meetup
Welcome to the Vancouver dev gen AI meetup in Vancouver, AICAMP in collaboration with SFU VentureLabs and Couchbase. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and machine learning, food/drink, networking with speakers and fellow developers.
Agenda:
5:00pm~5:30pm: Checkin, food/drink and networking
5:30pm~7:00pm: Tech talks and Q&A
7:00pm~7:30pm: Open discussion and Mixer
Tech Talk 1:
From Commits to Careers — Inside LLM Training and How to Get Hired in AI
Speaker: Quentin Gallouédec (Hugging Face)
Abstract: Large Language Models are transforming the tech landscape — but how are they actually trained? And how can contributing to open source help launch your career in AI? In this talk, Hugging Face research engineer Quentin Gallouédec will demystify the LLM training pipeline as it exists in 2025, from massive-scale pre-training to post-training techniques like Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and GRPO. Then, he’ll zoom in on the open-source movement that’s rapidly closing the gap with proprietary models — and show why it’s one of the best ways to break into the field. You’ll leave with a clear understanding of modern LLM development, a live demo of how to get involved and contribute to an ai project, and practical tips on how even small open contributions can get you noticed, hired, or funded.
Tech Talk 2:
AI at the Edge: Mobile Sync & Semantic Search with
Speaker: Matt O'Sullivan (Couchbase)
Abstract: Join Matt O'Sullivan from Couchbase for a hands-on session exploring how our modern data platform powers AI-driven applications at the edge. We’ll begin with a brief introduction to Couchbase and how its unique architecture enables performance, flexibility, and cost-efficiency in today’s AI landscape. You'll see (and can follow along) a live demo of included mobile and offline sync capabilities - ideal for real-time, low-latency AI experiences in remote or disconnected environments. Matt will also show how Couchbase supports vector search at the edge, bringing semantic understanding directly to the device.
Please sign up to the Free tier ahead of time to follow along on your own machine for the walk through of interactive semantic search demo powered by vector embeddings.
If you want to go further ahead of time, Couchbase has a developer page with tutorials on building with Couchbase and several popular LLMs and Embedding models (OpenAI, Bedrock, Claude, etc.)
Whether you're building intelligent apps, exploring retrieval-augmented generation, or deploying AI at the edge, this session is designed to spark ideas and deliver practical takeaways.
Speakers/Topics:
Quentin Gallouédec is a Research Engineer at Hugging Face since 2024, and the core maintainer of Transformers Reinforcement Learning (TRL). His current research focus is on applying post-training methods such as Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), and Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to enhance the alignment, efficiency, and generalization of language models. He earned a PhD in Reinforcement Learning in 2024, where he worked on exploration and generalization in standard RL. An active contributor to open-source AI since 2020, he has also been a maintainer of Stable-Baselines3.
If you have a keen interest in speaking to our community, we invite you to submit topics for consideration: Submit Topics
Sponsors: We are actively seeking sponsors to support AI developers community. Whether it is by offering venue spaces, providing food, or cash sponsorship. Sponsors will not only speak at the meetups, receive prominent recognition, but also gain exposure to our extensive membership base of 5,000+ AI developers in Vancouver and 500K+ worldwide.
Local and Global AI Community on Discord Join us on discord for local and global AI tech community:
• Events chat: chat and connect with speakers and global and local attendees;
• Learning AI: events, learning materials, study groups;
• Startups: innovation, projects collaborations, founders/co-founders;
• Jobs and Careers: job openings, post resumes, hiring managers.