Vancouver AI Community Meetup: 7/30
Vancouver AI serves as BC's cross-disciplinary gathering point where, within the vibrant BC + AI industry ecosystem, diverse participants—from coding novices to seasoned researchers—connect to share insights, showcase applications, and collectively shape responsible AI development through monthly in-person exchanges.
Silicon Valley keeps telling the same bedtime story: “Just trust the next model upgrade, pay the subscription, enjoy the convenience.”
Hard pass.
We know tech is never neutral. It can colonize or liberate depending on whose hands are on the keyboard. So we gather monthly—artists, acrobatic coders, Indigenous futurists, queer punks, stealth academics, burnt-out execs, actual teenagers building dream-powered games—to collectively aim this firehose of innovation toward something worth living for. If that sounds like your frequency, tune in.
Watts Up With AI?
Lionel Ringenbach
UCODIA
Lionel’s back with a follow-up to his “Watts Up with AI” keynote... this time unpacking his research from the MUTEK AI Ecologies Lab in Montreal.
He’ll demo his VS Code extension that reveals the hidden energy costs of coding with AI, fresh from his residency and visits to Mila and SAT.
Code. Kill. Evolve.
Michael Yagudaev
AudiowaveAI
A mantra for modern engineers. In a world of infinite tools and zero focus, Michael shares how to navigate noise, build what matters, and stay lethal in your decision-making.
Peter Bowles
UpSpiral Wellness
Michelle Diamond
ContentCo.ca
Michelle Diamond is the soul lens of our movement. Month by month, she captures not just images but evidence—that we showed up, built together, laughed, questioned, and dared to imagine otherwise.
Her portraits breathe life into our messy, magical mycelial network.
Vancouver Ai Community Meetups are a live transmission from the edge of what’s possible. An underground broadcast of brains, heart, culture and code.
Bring your startup idea, your sketchbook, your skepticism, your story.
Bring your ancestors and your algorithms.
Bring whatever makes you you — and plug in.
We’re building BC’s AI culture — together. Radically local. Deeply human. Fiercely experimental.
This is Mission 19. You’re invited.
THE SPACE
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, 1100 Chestnut St. The place with the UFO-looking roof that makes you feel like you're discussing AI in the appropriate sci-fi setting. Fully accessible. Parking available for your carbon-producing vehicles. Transit nearby.
Partners and Sponsors:
Dimitri Schwartzman: Real estate guy who funds community stuff instead of just buying yachts
SEGEV LLP: Lawyers who can talk about tech without reading from Wikipedia
METACREATION Lab: Researchers who understand AI should make art, not just surveillance tech
TheUpgrade.ai: AI education & adoption for businesses and teams.
ABOUT VANCOUVER AI
Vancouver AI is a neural network of curious humans mapping the terrain between technology and consciousness.
Since 2023, we've been building a different kind of tech community: one that questions as much as it creates, that bridges art galleries and research labs, corporate towers and garage workshops.
We run monthly gatherings where you'll find the unexpected: AI researchers jamming with musicians, developers debating ethics with philosophers, and entrepreneurs finding inspiration in indigenous wisdom. Together we're co-creating understanding.
No outsiders calling the shots, no Silicon Valley hypercapitalist agenda—just a self-organizing system of people who give a damn about where this technological revolution is taking us and who gets to steer.
ABOUT THE BC + AI ECOSYSTEM
Vancouver AI was just the start. BC's AI Ecosystem continues to grow, with new community hubs emerging in Surrey, Victoria, Kelowna, and beyond—each contributing unique perspectives to a thriving, interconnected network.
BC + AI represents a collective, province-wide effort to democratize AI knowledge, innovation, and opportunity. If you're in Surrey (or nearby!), come join the movement and connect with fellow AI explorers.
Vancouver AI DATA STORTYTELLING HACKATHON ROUND 3
We surveyed 1,000 actual British Columbians about AI. Not just tech workers echoing each other in Discord servers. Loggers, teachers, fishers, students, grandparents—real voices from real communities across the province.
Your mission: turn raw signal into something that serves truth. Build tools, art, policy proposals, interactive stories, angry zines—whatever the data demands.
The bounty: $2,500 this round (part of our $10k prize pool from RIVAL)
Deadline: August 13
FULL DETAILS: https://hackathon.bc-ai.net/
Registration: Send "I'm building" to vanaihackathon@gmail.com
Download the data: https://vancouver.bc-ai.net/hackathon-round-3
Come find your crew.
Come deepen the signal.
Come as you are.