How are these rooms different from AInBC, DIGITAL, or Trade and Invest BC?

BC + AI hosts recurring practitioner rooms. AInBC publishes a directory and works on partnerships. DIGITAL is the commercialization cluster. Trade and Invest BC tells the provincial investment story. Those layers are adjacent. They are not the rooms.

What happened to Surrey AI?

The Surrey AI community built the momentum. FV+AI keeps the same people and spirit and opens the map to the Fraser Valley. The Surrey archive stays on the Surrey AI series page.

Can I host a room with BC + AI?

Yes, if you have people, a place, and a question. Email hello@bc-ai.ca with a plain note. Applied & Industrial AI and Data & Security are still forming. They are seeds, not chapters yet.

BC + AI Ecosystem Association

From one Vancouver meetup to a province-wide AI community.

BC + AI became a nonprofit because the work had grown bigger than one room. The rooms below are the regional chapters and focused communities that grew from that work.

Find your community See upcoming events Start here: about BC + AI

Our communities

Find your people.

These are the rooms with enough shape to stand behind: regional chapters, recurring gatherings, and focused communities already doing the work.

Flagship regional room

Vancouver AI

The original room where the BC + AI ecosystem gathers in person before the work fans out across the province.

Audience: Builders, artists, researchers, founders, students, educators, public servants, skeptics, and curious neighbours.
Cadence: Monthly meetup and related public recaps

Learn more See upcoming events

Official regional chapter

FV+AI: Fraser Valley AI

A Fraser Valley home base for practical talks, local demos, good food, and people you can actually build with.

Audience: Neighbours from Langley to Chilliwack who want to try things, compare notes, and put AI to work close to home.
Cadence: Second Wednesday of every month in Langley

Learn more Find the next FV+AI gathering

A Comox Valley AI meetup audience gathered for a local presentation.

Regional chapter

CV + AI: Comox Valley AI Community Meetup

A neighbourly Island room asking what it means to be human in the age of AI.

Audience: Comox Valley builders, educators, civic leaders, creatives, families, local operators, and AI-curious neighbours.
Cadence: Local meetup with Luma as the current CTA

Learn more Find the next Comox Valley gathering

Creative special-interest group

AI Film Club

A room for making the work, showing the work, and talking honestly about what AI changes.

Audience: Filmmakers, storytellers, motion designers, artists, creative technologists, and production people working with AI tools.
Cadence: Monthly screenings, demos, and works-in-progress

Learn more RSVP for Film Club

MAC community members beside the Mind, AI and Consciousness table at the February 2026 Takeover.

Active reading and workshop community

Mind, AI, and Consciousness (MAC)

The deep reading room where BC + AI does the hard thinking about minds and machines.

Audience: Readers and practitioners exploring mind, embodiment, agency, synthetic consciousness, and moral consideration.
Cadence: Monthly Deep Dives, MAC Labs, and public reading trails

Learn more Enter the MAC archive

People gathered in a circle on low couches in a Vancouver studio loft, mid-conversation. Archive photograph from the wider BC + AI ecosystem; this forming group has not run its own session yet.

Forming special-interest group

AI Creativity + Design

A forming room for creative practice, design craft, and hands-on AI workflow exchange.

Audience: Designers, artists, creative technologists, builders, and people testing new creative workflows.
Cadence: Forming group; first-session cadence not confirmed

Learn more Register interest

Ed + AI series art: teal bioluminescent mushrooms on ochre branches over a violet spore print, with the ED + AI and AI in Education lettering.

Education special-interest group

Ed + AI: Education Meetup

A consent-first, equity-minded, place-rooted circle for AI in learning, hosted with Ethọ́s Lab.

Audience: Educators, students, parents and caregivers, youth workers, librarians, researchers, EdTech builders, and neighbours working on AI in learning.
Cadence: Monthly, one Thursday evening, at Ethọ́s Lab in Vancouver

Learn more Follow BC + AI on Luma for the next date

Working civic policy lab

AI Ethical Futures Lab

A working civic policy lab for people who want AI's possibilities without surrendering agency, accountability, or public voice.

Audience: Community members, public-interest practitioners, educators, workers, artists, researchers, and policy-curious builders.
Cadence: Monthly working sessions, public recaps, and consultation work

Learn more See upcoming Lab sessions

AI and Life Sciences event artwork with a forest figure, ravens, microscopes, salmon, mountains, and the August 11, 2026 date.

Domain special-interest group

Life Sciences & AI

Life sciences people, around one table.

Audience: People working where AI meets biology, chemistry, biotech, healthcare, drug discovery, health data, and commercialization.
Cadence: Supper-table and public meetup formats

Learn more See Life Sciences events

Regional chapters

Local rooms, local texture.

Vancouver is the origin point. Fraser Valley carries the Surrey AI lineage from Langley to Chilliwack. Comox Valley shows the model travelling to the Island without flattening what makes each place specific.

Special interests

Focused circles for the real questions.

Some rooms are creative, some civic, some technical, some philosophical. Each one has a public path into the work.

Still forming

Raise your hand early.

These are seeds, not programs. We are collecting names, questions, and possible hosts while each group finds its shape.

Forming group

Applied & Industrial AI

For operators, policy people, builders, researchers, and industry partners thinking about practical AI adoption in British Columbia.

Raise your hand for Applied & Industrial AI

Forming group

Data & Security

For people working in security, privacy, governance, data stewardship, and responsible AI deployment.

Raise your hand for Data & Security

Regional rooms FAQ

Which regional AI rooms does BC + AI host?: Three public regional chapters: Vancouver AI, the origin room; FV+AI in the Fraser Valley, which carries the Surrey AI lineage from Langley to Chilliwack; and CV + AI in the Comox Valley. Topic rooms such as Film Club sit beside those chapters.
How are these rooms different from AInBC, DIGITAL, or Trade and Invest BC?: BC + AI hosts recurring practitioner rooms. AInBC publishes a directory and works on partnerships. DIGITAL is the commercialization cluster. Trade and Invest BC tells the provincial investment story. Those layers are adjacent. They are not the rooms.
What happened to Surrey AI?: The Surrey AI community built the momentum. FV+AI keeps the same people and spirit and opens the map to the Fraser Valley. The Surrey archive stays on the Surrey AI series page.
Can I host a room with BC + AI?: Yes, if you have people, a place, and a question. Email hello@bc-ai.ca with a plain note. Applied & Industrial AI and Data & Security are still forming. They are seeds, not chapters yet.

How to join

Join BC + AI, then find your community.

Membership is your year-round way into BC + AI: weekly Office Hours, member channels, working groups, and many of these community gatherings included with membership. Public meetups remain an easy place to start.

Join BC + AI Explore upcoming events Meet the members

Host a room

Vancouver, Fraser Valley, and Comox Valley are the regional chapters already in the wild. If you want to organize another regional or topical room under BC + AI, start with a plain note about the people, place, and question you want to gather around.

Email hello@bc-ai.ca