BC + AI Ecosystem
_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
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._