Vancouver AI Community Announcements: September 2025

Vancouver AI’s September community announcements: events you can actually show up to, research wins, sponsors, and a new Discord to stitch our brains together.

– Join BC + AI: https://bc-ai.ca/membership/
– Next Vancouver AI meetup: https://luma.com/vancouver-ai
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We run this thing like a band practice meets a salon. Real people. Real projects. Tools that get used. Here is the September 24 community brief so the threads do not evaporate in WhatsApp.

Helena and VAM! at Northeastern. October 18.
Elena, new in the BC + AI member network, is co-creating an evening with Prof. Isam Lai titled “AI Beyond the Algorithm. Power, Psyche, and the Future of Human Agency.” Speakers include KK for the scene set. Dr. Philippe Phïpe Pasquier from the SFU Metacreation Lab. A local dev will demo how to run an LLM privately with a privacy-first workflow. Links will be in WhatsApp and Luma.
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Metacreation Lab at Ars Electronica.
Phïpe presented a paper in Linz co-authored by Aria, Leonel, Muhammad, Phïpe, and KK. It received an Honourable Mention. The work explores artist-safe generative practice using GANs and AutoLoom so artists can train on their own corpus rather than scrape the world. The link is on Metacreation’s LinkedIn.
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Also in the lounge. A small library table with free stickers. Printed Metacreation papers. Our BC Studies piece by KK and Dr. Patrick Parra-Penafather about how communities grow and why it matters. Merch clearance so we can make new weirdness. Last hand-dyed one-offs at 100. Most shirts at 20. If a ten spot is what you have, do that. Honor system. Tell KK or tuck it in a pocket.
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Carlie Steman. Lady Electric.
Nineteen years in the trades. Photographing nineteen tradeswomen. Exhibition runs Oct 18 to Nov 1 with six events including a Home Maintenance 101 pilot. Goal is basic agency for homeowners and elders who want to live independently. Karly uses AI as a workbench assistant. Planning, prototyping, and pushing projects to done.
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Surrey AI. Matthew Schwarzman.
Smaller room. High signal. May move closer to City Hall. Ticket includes a food voucher for the Legion kitchen in the back. Three grandmas and serious dessert. Ask Matthew for a discount code.
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AI plus Education at Ethos. Arnold’s field report.
Peer-led and practical. Teachers. Parents. Builders. If you care how AI lands in classrooms and daily learning, this room is worth your night. Next one is Oct 9.
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Sponsors. thanks.
James Lester from Sons of Vancouver Distillery. Reader. Maker. Patron. Book pick is Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. He offered three creative modes. Constructive. You are building the tunnel. Reductive. You carve away the marble to find the statue. Pollock. You throw paint. Use that last one with care.
Segev LLP. Marius with Ron and Alon Segev. Startup law with range. AI. IP. copyright. trademarks. Also deep in crypto and games. If you are building outside your comfort zone, talk to them early.

Dimmitri. realtor. maker. dad.
Using AI for deep property research and exportable intel. Building a prompt stack that finds lowest price per square foot by chosen parameters across regions. Also pushing AI literacy inside real estate.
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Discord and the community survey. Gabe Zaro.
We are moving from scattered chats to structured, searchable threads. Zaro, a community architect from EA and 2K, built an onboarding that only shows the channels you ask for. Pick interests. Pick SIGs like MAC or Ed plus AI. Pick location. Accept Krüg’s Code of Cool. Spin up voice or video rooms when you need them. Use forum channels so a paper we share today is still findable two years from now.

There is also a ten minute survey for matchmaking. Founders with devs. Educators with researchers. Artists with engineers. This is not growth hacks. This is care infrastructure.
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Chapters

00:00 open and context
01:05 Elena and Prof. Isam. Oct 18
04:10 Metacreation paper at Ars. link notes and library table
06:45 merch clearance and why
09:00 Karly Steman. tradeswomen exhibit and workshop
12:20 SIRI AI. Surrey notes and grandma kitchen
14:10 Ed plus AI at Ethos. next date
16:00 sponsors. James on creativity. book pick
18:20 sponsors. Segev LLP. legal lanes
20:05 Dimmitri. real estate research
22:10 Discord rollout. onboarding and forums
25:40 community survey. matchmaking
27:10 close and how to plug in

We honour the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, and səlilwətaɬ peoples whose lands we gather on.

#VancouverAI #BCAI #HumanPlusPlus #RegenerativeTech #CreativeAI