2023
The first room
A small Vancouver group begins meeting to work out what AI means for their professions and communities. The February 2024 photograph is the earliest approved room image in the public archive.
Browse the early rooms
- paid members
- 250+
- Current conservative public threshold
- people through the doors
- 3,000+
- Across gatherings, programs, and events
- documented events
- 94+
- Since 2023
- active regions
- 3
- Vancouver, Surrey, and Comox Valley
01
Mission + vision
Our mission
Build recurring rooms where people across professions can learn, evaluate, adopt, refuse, and shape AI together.
Our vision
A province-wide network that turns local trust into professional capability and collective agency.
AI lands inside every profession. A conference can introduce people. A directory can help them find one another. Trust takes return trips, protected conversations, public memory, and enough time to act together.
B.C. can connect technology with creative practice, clean energy, Indigenous governance, education, healthcare, and public-interest work. The room can hold enthusiasm and skepticism while the consequences are still being shaped.
02
Origin
From spark to movement
It started with people trying to make sense of change in the same room.
The format grew before the institution did. Each milestone below has a public event record, archive, or operating receipt attached to it.
An early Vancouver AI room, February 2024. The community began in 2023.Photo by Michelle Diamond Aug. 2025
A room becomes an association
At Vancouver AI Meetup 20, BC + AI launches as a British Columbia nonprofit so the work can outlive any one organizer, sponsor, or news cycle.
Open the event record
Vancouver AI Meetup 20 and the BC + AI nonprofit launch, August 2025.Photo by Michelle Diamond Jun. 2026
Thirty Vancouver rooms
Vancouver AI Meetup 30 fills the planetarium with builders, artists, educators, students, public servants, founders, and skeptics.
See meetup 30Now
One network, many rooms
250+ paid members, 3,000+ participants, 94+ documented events, and recurring rooms in three B.C. regions. The numbers matter because they show people returning and taking responsibility for the work.
Read the public operator log
03
Operating model
How the movement works
Community is the base. Collective agency is the point.
- 01
Recurring rooms
Monthly gatherings, weekly Office Hours, regional chapters, and focused communities give relationships enough time to become trust.
Find a room - 02
Professional capability
Programs, teaching, working groups, recaps, and public resources turn conversation into knowledge people can use.
Explore learning paths - 03
A public voice
The nonprofit gives members a way to carry shared experience into policy, procurement, and public-interest conversations.
Read our positions
Six operating principles
A real community is a practice, not a mailing list.
- 01
Cadence
People come back. Monthly and weekly rooms create continuity that a one-off event cannot.
- 02
Contribution
Members teach, host, document, organize, ask hard questions, and start the groups they want to exist.
- 03
Shared responsibility
The association answers to the people doing the work and affected by how AI enters their fields.
- 04
Protected conversations
Not every useful conversation belongs on a stage or in a searchable transcript. Trust needs room for candour.
- 05
Public documentation
Talks, recaps, photographs, reading lists, and working notes become public when they can be shared responsibly.
- 06
Local economic circulation
Local hosts, venues, photographers, teachers, and sponsors keep more of the value moving through B.C.
04
Regional proof
Three places, one model
The network travels when local people own the room.
The playbook is shared. The hosts, questions, partnerships, and culture remain local.
29 documented gatherings
Vancouver
The flagship room keeps the province-wide network grounded in a monthly public gathering.
3 documented gatherings
Surrey
Surrey AI has its own hosts, audience, questions, and relationships south of the Fraser.
3 documented gatherings
Comox Valley
Comox Valley began as an exploratory gathering and became a locally shaped chapter with its own programming.
05
Programs
What we actually do
Eight ways the rooms turn into practice.
Rooms
- Vancouver AI
The flagship monthly gathering and the room the association grew from.
- Weekly Office Hours
A Friday working session for questions, feedback, and practical help.
- AI Film Club
Screenings and working conversations for filmmakers using and questioning AI.
- Mind, AI & Consciousness
A recurring philosophical room for the questions that technical demos leave open.
- Ed + AI
A learning circle for educators, youth, parents, builders, and neighbours.
Capability
- Responsible AI Professional
A certification path for people responsible for AI inside real organizations.
- Animation Accelerator
A cohort program that moves creative AI experiments toward finished work.
Public Voice
- AI Ethical Futures Lab
A civic lab for public-interest questions, governance, and collective response.
Recognition + receipts
Every claim should lead somewhere you can inspect.
Media
Vancouver Magazine Power 50
The 2026 list recognized founder Kris Krüg for growing Vancouver AI into a cross-disciplinary community.
Read the profile Academic record
A place-based community of practice
A BC Studies case study examines Vancouver AI through regular engagement, informal learning, and public documentation.
Read the case study Public archive
The receipts stay open
Event records, videos, photographs, recaps, and the operator log let people inspect the work instead of taking our word for it.
Open the archive story 06
People
The people holding the network
Programs recur because people keep taking responsibility for them.
Founder and Executive Director
Kris Krüg
Holds the association, the flagship Vancouver room, and the work of turning local relationships into shared infrastructure.
AI Film Club lead
Kevin Friel
Holds the recurring room where filmmakers can screen work, compare tools, and argue about what creative control means now.
Community photographer
Michelle Diamond
Builds the visual memory of the network, returning month after month to document people as relationships grow.
Profile Documentary filmmaker
Viktor Serbin
Builds the video memory of the network, documenting the people and ideas inside the public rooms.
Community leads
Matthew Schwartzman
Surrey AI co-organizer
Keeps Surrey AI local, connected, and recurring.
Anthonia Ogundele
Ed + AI co-lead
Connects youth, educators, families, and creative technology through Ethọ́s Lab.
Jesi Carson
AI Ethical Futures Lab lead
Holds the network's recurring civic and public-interest inquiry.
Lourdes Gant
Comox Valley regional lead
Helps the Valley chapter set its own rhythm, questions, and local relationships.
Choose a path