Vancouver
29 documented gatherings
29
About
British Columbia's practical AI community.
Multi-modal. Multi-cultural. Radically local. Future-facing.
BC + AI Ecosystem Association is a member-supported nonprofit building practical, responsible AI capacity in British Columbia. We gather builders, artists, educators, researchers, founders, public servants, students, and AI-curious neighbours in real rooms first, then make the useful public resources available online.
What this is
BC + AI is a British Columbia nonprofit association for the local artificial intelligence ecosystem.
Who it is for
The community includes AI builders, researchers, educators, policy leaders, students, creatives, and AI-curious citizens.
Where it meets
BC + AI is anchored in Vancouver and runs practical events and learning rooms across British Columbia.
How to join
People join by attending events, becoming members, or partnering with the association on responsible AI adoption.
- members
- 250+
- people backing practical AI community infrastructure
- attendees
- 3,000+
- event participants across meetups, programs, and gatherings
- events
- 94+
- since 2023
- BC regions
- 4
- local rooms and community nodes across the province
Not a metaphor
This is what the ecosystem looks like.
Photos: Michelle Diamond
The rooms
Province-wide, in person first.
Four community rooms across British Columbia, each shaped by the people who actually gather there. The public archive keeps track of what has happened and what people can catch up on next.
Surrey
3 documented gatherings
3
Comox Valley
Regional room forming
0
No public recap attached yet.
Victoria
Regional room forming
0
No public recap attached yet.
What we do
Gather. We run monthly meetups and community rooms across Vancouver, Surrey, the Comox Valley, film, education, ethical futures, life sciences, and consciousness studies.
Study.The Mind, AI & Consciousness deep-dive series — eight months, eight sessions, eight dossiers — anchors our public learning archive. Other series, recaps, videos, and resource guides build from that same pattern.
Build. We turn meetups into working groups, scholarships, directories, practical education, event archives, and public-interest AI infrastructure for British Columbia.
Principles
In person first. The best conversations happen in rooms. We invest in the rooms.
Chatham House rules in private rooms. Public talks are public; small deep-dive sessions are kept confidential so people can think out loud without consequences.
The room, in the open. What can be shared without compromising the room — recaps, photos, dossiers, reading lists — becomes a public resource.
Local economy. Partnerships with local sponsors, local photographers, local spaces. We try to keep the money circulating in BC.
More on bc-ai.ca
Start with the public paths.
Board, bylaws, partners, financials, and the longer-form story of how BC + AI came to be live on bc-ai.ca/about. This scaffold keeps the content-rich paths easy to browse: events, membership, videos, resources, and the public directory.