CV + AI Community Meetup #3
The Valley already has signal.
Comox Valley AI did not start because somebody imported a Vancouver tech meetup and put an Island sticker on it. It started because local people kept showing up with real questions: teachers, artists, parents, small business owners, builders, public servants, skeptics, and neighbours trying to make sense of tools that are moving faster than the policy around them.
July is about giving that room more shape. Less stage, more signal. A little framing, a little practice, and enough open conversation for people to find the other folks asking the same hard questions.
Featured Workshop
Community, Connection and Collective Wisdom in the Age of AI is a practical working session led by Lori Lynch and Suzie Read from Built for Change. Lori brings the systems, AI, and operations lens; Suzie brings the leadership, judgement, motivation, and human-behaviour lens. They’ll open with a short spark talk, then get the room comparing notes instead of sitting politely through another slide deck.
The point is simple: what is actually changing at work, what still matters because people are people, and how the Comox Valley can help each other make sense of AI without hype, panic, or sales theatre. Expect a facilitated conversation, a few useful prompts, and space for people to find the neighbours wrestling with the same questions.
Bios/photo: coming soon.
What We’ll Do In The Room
- Start with a grounded welcome from the Comox Valley AI host team.
- Hear Lori and Suzie frame the workshop in plain language.
- Break into small-group or whole-room conversation depending on turnout.
- Compare notes on what excites people, what worries people, and what skills matter now.
- Leave with a few new connections, not just another set of slides.
Who Should Come
Come if you are using AI every day and still have better questions than answers.
Come if you are worried about schools, work, privacy, creativity, small business, civic trust, or who gets to shape these systems.
Come if you are from Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland, Campbell River, Denman, Hornby, or anywhere nearby and want the AI conversation to sound more like the people who actually live here.
You do not need to be technical. You do not need a polished opinion. Bring a question, a project, a concern, or a friend who usually avoids tech events.
Details
- Date: Thursday, July 2, 2026
- Time: 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM PDT
- Venue: Comox Valley, BC. Venue details coming soon.
- Format: local talks, practical examples, facilitated discussion, open conversation
- Luma: https://luma.com/comox-ai-july
About Comox Valley AI
Comox Valley AI is the BC + AI regional chapter for Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland, Campbell River, and the wider Island.
The chapter is currently co-led by Kris Krüg, Steve Jones, Colin Fitzgerald, and Mel DiPietro.
The Island has its own shape: practical, creative, community-first, and allergic to nonsense. That is the spirit here. Curious and critical. Both hands full. Real people figuring it out together.
About BC + AI
BC + AI Ecosystem Association is a registered nonprofit building community-driven AI spaces across British Columbia.
We help people learn in public, share what is real, ask better questions, and build local capacity around AI with ethics, creativity, transparency, and public good in the room from the beginning.
Learn more: https://bc-ai.ca
About BC + AI Ecosystem Association
BC + AI is the province-wide layer: a community-driven, nonprofit industry association built to create public-interest infrastructure for AI in British Columbia.
Not a corporate lobby. Not a think tank. A commons where meetups turn into working groups, prototypes turn into shared tools, and community values turn into governance.
Join / support: https://bc-ai.ca/membership/
