BC + AI Life Sciences Meetup
We started at a dinner table.
On the agenda:
\- Viewpoint: What’s AI ever done for me? Artificial Intelligence in my life science research – past, present and future.
\- Debate: Does AI help or hinder doctors on the front line?
\- Programs: update on the AI life sciences group’s objectives
Last month, Simon Haworth and Kris Krüg pulled together a small group — drug discovery researchers, health analytics leads, clinicians, interoperability architects, venture folks, and data-for-good practitioners — for a no-presentations, no-pitches supper at Simon’s place.
Attendees included folk from Genome BC, Providence Healthcare Ventures, a front line doctor, data regulators, AI tech folks, entrepreneurs, consultants, life sciences researchers and … Simon with his biotech AI drug discovery hat on. What happened was what usually happens when you put genuinely different life-sciences perspectives in the same room with good food and honest framing: the conversation went places a conference panel never would.
We talked about where AI is actually working in life sciences (drug discovery has moved fast — one-third of new pharma development now involves AI) and where we’re still in the early innings (the biology frontier is harder than the chemistry, wins suggest, and front line healthcare doesn’t quite know what to make of AI – though patients seem to have a pretty good idea).
We talked about why Canada’s health data fragmentation is a governance problem as much as a technology problem. About patient records: a priceless resource with which to solve human diseases or an institutional IP win that the patients don’t want to share? About why some clinicians immediately see AI as an enabling workflow tool while others experience it as noise – or irrelevant – and what changes that.
We ALL get it: AI matters in healthcare. For the second year running, WebSummit Vancouver attendees rated healthcare as the market segment offering greatest benefits from AI application but … there was still no life-sciences track and global pharma didn’t even turn up. It seems there is more to do. So let’s get on and do it
The first supper was a good night. Even Simon’s appalling poetry hasn’t put us off from doing it again.
Same DNA — cross-silo, concrete, community-first. With a slightly wider table.
If you work anywhere in the life sciences and AI space in BC: biotech, pharma, clinical research, health informatics, medical devices, health policy, patient advocacy, venture, or academia — this is your gathering.
We won’t be pitching products or doing a hackathon. We’ll be talking about what BC can do on the two stages that matter to us: global and local. The life sciences meetup is for those who want to take action and those who want to make new connections (and then do something useful with those new relationships).
What to expect
6:00 PM: Doors open, informal mingling, a little wine
6:30 PM: Short framing from Simon and Kris: where we are, what the series is building toward
6:45 PM: Supper is served!
6:45 PM: View from the front line: what AI means to me in life sciences. \[_Speaker details being confirmed – basically we want to give each Founder Member a chance to share their experience, with one Founder taking centre stage at each event_\]
7:15 PM: Debate: “AI is of little real value to doctors or surgeons. And for patients, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Discuss
7:45 PM: Program and progress: Refining and implementing the Life Sciences meet-up objectives. Global and local. Be involved.
8:30 PM: Close of proceedings. Conversations continue as long as the wine holds out.
No pitch session. No shortage of opinions. New connections you never thought of. Casserole. Nuts. Perhaps a little creativity. Bring your honest read on what’s actually happening in your corner of the field.
Who this is for
You work at the intersection of AI and life sciences in BC (or you want to) and you would like to make a contribution by taking your place at the table, literally and metaphorically;
You have a burning life-sciences ambition – global or local – and you want AI to help deliver it;
You want to let serendipity do her thing, revealing new and unexpected connections in the sector;
You’re willing to say what’s actually hard, not just what’s exciting.
About the series
The BC + AI Life Sciences community is a special interest group inside the BC + AI ecosystem, co-led by Simon Haworth (CEO, Intellomx; BC-UK-PRC-US entrepreneur and investor) and Kris Krüg (BC + AI). The supper series is building toward a full Life Sciences track at BC + AI Festival Week this October — but we’re growing the community the right way: one table at a time.
BC + AI is BC’s independent AI ecosystem, focused on ethical, community-accountable adoption of AI across sectors. No hype, no boosterism — just the work.