Conference tracker
The rooms we are watching.
Our own gatherings are on the events page. This page is the other half: the gatherings we do not run, from local Vancouver conferences to the big national and international ones, what each is actually for, and how BC + AI plans to show up. 14 of the 22 below have dates the organisers have published. The rest recur on a known rhythm, and we have marked them unannounced instead of guessing.
Worth planning around
- Frontier Summit 2026 in Vancouver, BC and Polyglot Software Unconference 2026 in Vancouver, BC open 11 days apart. If both are on your list, plan them as one trip.
- Polyglot Software Unconference 2026 in Vancouver, BC and Seattle AI Week 2026 in Seattle, WA open 9 days apart. If both are on your list, plan them as one trip.
- Upper Bound 2027 in Edmonton, AB and Web Summit Vancouver 2027 in Vancouver, BC open 7 days apart. If both are on your list, plan them as one trip.
What we track, and why
Every entry carries one of four postures, so you can tell the difference between something we are running and something we think you should know exists.
- We host
- BC + AI runs this one.
- We send people
- We organise a group from BC and share what comes back.
- We partner
- We work with the organisers on programming or access.
- We watch
- On our radar for members, with no BC + AI presence planned yet.
Elevate Festival 2026
We watchSeptember 22 to 24, 2026Toronto, ON
Dates confirmed
Canada's largest tech and innovation festival. The 2026 edition centres on AI, scale-ups and Canadian tech sovereignty, with three days of talks and a matchmaking programme for investment-ready startups.
How we show up: Lands about two weeks before Frontier Summit week here in Vancouver. We're watching who from BC gets on stage or into the matchmaking track before we decide whether to organise a group.
Frontier Summit 2026
We watchOctober 6 to 8, 2026Vancouver, BC
Dates confirmed
Frontier Collective gathers about 150 invited founders, investors, scientists and policymakers in Vancouver across AI, climate tech and biotech. The 2026 theme is The Inflection Point.
How we show up: Invite-only, in our own city, and pitched at the capital and policy crowd more than the builders. We're tracking who from our community gets in.
Attendance is by invitation, so this isn't a ticket you can just buy. Worth asking early if it's somewhere you need to be.
Saturday, October 17, 2026UBC Robson Square, Vancouver, BC
Dates confirmed
A one-day open-space unconference run by the Polyglot Software Association, where the attendees propose and lead the sessions. It draws a few hundred developers, data scientists, ML engineers, designers and founders across any stack.
How we show up: Closest thing on this list to how we run our own events: local, community-run, built on people showing actual work. Good ground for a member who wants to lead a session, not sit through one.
Open-space format means the agenda is set on the morning. If you have something to show, you can put it on the board yourself.
Seattle AI Week 2026
We watchOctober 26 to 30, 2026Seattle, WA
Dates confirmed
Not one conference but a whole week: an opening reception, a flagship summit at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center, and 75 or more community events across Seattle. Organisers expect upwards of 5,000 people across the week.
How we show up: The nearest city running the same play we do, three hours down the I-5. We want to see how a week that size holds together, and who from BC makes the drive.
Autumn 2026, dates to be announcedHost city rotates between Vancouver, Seattle and Portland
Dates not announced yet
The annual cross-border gathering of the Vancouver, Seattle and Portland corridor, bringing business, academic and government leaders from both sides of the border. The 2025 edition ran October 28 and 29 in Seattle.
How we show up: This is where the cross-border relationship gets set, and the agenda has mostly been housing, rail and transport. AI belongs in that conversation too. We're waiting on a 2026 date.
SAAS NORTH 2026
We watchNovember 4 and 5, 2026Rogers Centre Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
Dates confirmed
Canada's largest gathering of SaaS founders and operators, themed Scaling In The Era Of AI. Two days on product, pricing, growth and trust for about 2,000 founders, operators and investors.
How we show up: This one is about how AI gets sold in business software, not how it gets built. Useful for members running companies. We have no presence there yet.
Web Summit Lisbon 2026
We watchNovember 9 to 12, 2026MEO Arena / FIL Exhibition Centre, Lisbon, Portugal
Dates confirmed
Web Summit's flagship event and the largest of its conferences, expected to draw more than 70,000 attendees from over 160 countries.
How we show up: Web Summit's biggest event, and the parent of the one we host in Vancouver. We go looking for founders and speakers worth bringing home.
NeurIPS 2026
We watchDecember 6 to 12, 2026International Convention Centre Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Dates confirmed
The largest machine learning research conference in the world, with official satellite programmes in Atlanta and Paris running in parallel. It ran in Vancouver several times before moving on; the 2027 edition heads to Europe.
How we show up: Mostly a research calendar item for us now that it's left Vancouver. We track the submission deadlines for members who publish.
Indigenous Tech Conference 2027
We watchJanuary 26 to 28, 2027Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel, Vancouver, BC
Dates confirmed
Indigenous Tech Circle's flagship gathering, billed as North America's largest Indigenous tech conference. Three days on data sovereignty, Indigenous innovation and critical infrastructure, with founders, investors and Nations in the room.
How we show up: A national gathering on our own home turf, close to work we already care about through Indigenomics. We're watching this one closely before we decide whether a deeper relationship makes sense.
AAAI-27
We watchFebruary 16 to 23, 2027Montreal, QC
Dates confirmed
The 41st AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. One of the oldest and largest academic AI conferences, and it lands in Canada this year.
How we show up: Relevant to our academic and research members. We plan to point people at the deadlines instead of organising a group.
Paper and workshop deadlines run well ahead of the event. Watch the AAAI site if you plan to submit.
TED2027
We watchMarch 1 to 4, 2027San Diego, CA
Dates confirmed
The flagship TED conference. After twelve years in Vancouver it moves to San Diego, so 2027 is the first year the main stage is not in our city.
How we show up: TED leaving town takes a large annual moment out of Vancouver. We are tracking what that means for the visitors and side events that used to come with it.
Vancouver Startup Week 2027
We watchLate April 2027, dates to be announcedVancouver, BC
Dates not announced yet
A week of founder-run programming spread across the city. The 2026 edition ran April 27 to May 1 with more than 85 events.
How we show up: Open to anyone willing to run something, which is close to how we work. We'd sooner put members on the schedule than in the audience.
Upper Bound 2027
We send peopleMay 18 to 21, 2027Edmonton Convention Centre, Edmonton, AB
Dates confirmed
Amii runs the largest AI conference in western Canada, mixing research with business adoption. The 2026 edition drew 8,000+ attendees.
How we show up: The closest sibling ecosystem to ours. We want a BC group in the room and a debrief that comes home to our members.
Passes sold out ahead of the 2026 edition. A waitlist for 2027 is open on the Upper Bound site.
Web Summit Vancouver 2027
We hostMay 25 to 28, 2027Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver, BC
Dates confirmed
The largest technology conference held in our city, drawing founders, investors and press from around the world to the Vancouver Convention Centre.
How we show up: Home turf. This is the week the world looks at Vancouver, so we run community side events and put local builders in front of the visitors.
The best value here is usually the week around the main stage. Tell us what you are running and we will help fill the room.
Canadian AI 2027
We watchLate May 2027, dates to be announcedLocation to be announced
Dates not announced yet
The annual conference of the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association. The 2026 edition ran at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
How we show up: Having it at SFU in 2026 put a national academic conference on our doorstep. We're waiting on the 2027 host before deciding how to show up.
CascadiaJS 2027
We watchAround June 2027, dates to be announcedSeattle, WA
Dates not announced yet
A community-run web and AI conference for the Pacific Northwest, drawing around 500 developers and 20 or more speakers. The 2026 edition ran June 1 and 2 at Town Hall in Seattle.
How we show up: Seattle's answer to Polyglot. Community-run, developer-first, and small enough that a member can get on the schedule instead of just buying a ticket.
June 2027, dates to be announcedToronto, ON
Dates not announced yet
Canada's largest applied machine learning conference. The 2026 edition ran June 17 and 18 at CIBC Square, with workshop and virtual days either side of it.
How we show up: The build side of the field, not the publish side. We watch it for members shipping systems.
Startupfest 2027
We watchJuly 7 to 9, 2027Grand Quay, Montreal's Old Port, Montreal, QC
Dates confirmed
A three-day founder festival on the Montreal waterfront, built around mentor office hours, braindates and pitch competitions instead of a single main stage.
How we show up: A national founder gathering in a month when nothing else here is running. We'd like to see more BC founders make the trip east.
ALL IN 2027
We send peopleSeptember 2027, dates to be announcedMontreal, QC
Dates not announced yet
The largest AI event in Canada, organised by Scale AI, Ceimia and Mila. It gathers the policy, industry and research side of the national ecosystem.
How we show up: Where national AI policy actually gets talked about. We want BC voices in it instead of hearing about the decisions afterwards.
The 2026 edition ran September 16 and 17 in Montreal. Expect a similar window once 2027 is announced.
October 2 and 3, 2027Saskatoon, SK
Dates confirmed
Saskatchewan's first flagship AI and tech summit, billed by its organisers as a national conference. The province ran its first AI expo in Saskatoon in April 2026 and this is the scaled-up follow-on.
How we show up: Another province building the same kind of ecosystem body we are. The peer relationship interests us more than the trip does, so we're watching the first edition before deciding whether to show up.
No venue published yet. Worth a look if you work in agriculture, mining or public sector AI, where Saskatchewan has depth.
Futureproof Festival 2027
We hostOctober 2027, dates to be announcedVancouver, BC
Dates not announced yet
Our own festival, held each October at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver.
How we show up: We build this one. It's where the year of gatherings, questions and work in the BC community comes together on one stage.
NeurIPS 2027
We watchDecember 2027, dates to be announcedEurope, city to be announced
Dates not announced yet
The same NeurIPS, moving on again: after Sydney in 2026, the 2027 edition heads to Europe.
How we show up: Same posture as the 2026 edition. We keep both years listed for members timing paper and workshop deadlines a year out.
Tell us what we are missing
Know something that should be on this list?
Send it over. Conferences, summits, hackathons, policy convenings, anywhere our community should have a seat. If you have a discount code, an early-bird window, or a community rate you are allowed to share, send that too. We check the terms and pass the good ones to members.
Looking for something closer to home? See our gatherings. Want the dates in your inbox as they land? Get the field notes.