BC + AI Ecosystem Association
British Columbia's AI Community Organization
BC + AI Ecosystem is a member-supported nonprofit serving people across British Columbia: practitioners, educators, builders, public servants, and anyone looking for a local room to walk into.
People join through membership, attend events, collaborate in regional communities, take education programs, and use shared resources. The work runs in four capability areas, and each one groups programs that already run.
If you are assessing us for a partnership, a program, or a funding decision, this is the shortest route to what we actually operate. Every program below links to its own page.
01
AI learning and workforce
Cohort training that moves people from an interest in AI to a documented practice they can defend at work.
Who it serves
Working professionals, educators, employers, and people moving into AI-adjacent roles.
Programs
- Responsible AI Professional certificationCohort certification in AI governance, worked through the UNESCO, OECD, NIST, and IEEE frameworks.
- AI Animation & Filmmaking AcceleratorA Tiny Ghost Studios cohort that finishes with a portfolio-ready animated short, online or as a Vancouver intensive.
- The AI UpgradeA six-week cohort for creative professionals rebuilding their working process around AI.
- Local AI FundamentalsFour weekly online sessions on local models and agents. You leave with an orchestrator on your machine and a small model you trained with a persona.
- AI Builders FellowshipA CA$10,000 open-source fellowship with Internet Archive Canada across two projects, for builders, researchers, artists, and archivists.
- Ed + AI education meetupThe monthly AI and education circle hosted with Ethọ́s Lab, on what is actually happening in classrooms.
02
Responsible AI and governance
Public, sourced work on how AI should be governed, done with the people it lands on rather than about them.
Who it serves
Public servants, policy staff, journalists, and civic organizations.
Programs
- AI Ethical Futures LabA working civic policy lab that turns live AI questions into practical tools and public-interest action.
- The AI transparency response to OttawaWhat one Vancouver room told Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada during the AI for All comment period.
- Vancouver Civic AI Voter GuideA nonpartisan, sourced guide to municipal AI, data centres, privacy, and public benefit.
03
Applied AI and experimentation
Rooms and projects where people build the thing, show it running, and say plainly what broke.
Who it serves
Builders, founders, studios, researchers, and industry groups weighing adoption.
Programs
- Vancouver AI demo nightsThe monthly demo slot, open to anyone with something working to show.
- AI Film ClubA monthly screening night where makers explain what the tools did and what had to be fixed by hand.
- BC Public Compute ProjectPublic-interest policy and practical tools for data centres, AI infrastructure, and sovereign compute in British Columbia.
- Wild SalmonSimon Haworth’s proposal for bringing globally experienced BC founders and researchers home, published as an interactive work in progress.
- AI hackathon recordingsSubmissions, walkthroughs, and winner sessions from BC + AI hackathon rounds.
04
Community and regional capacity
Recurring rooms hosted by local people, so capability builds in more than one city.
Who it serves
Anyone in British Columbia looking for a room to walk into, and the hosts who run them.
Programs
- Vancouver AIThe flagship monthly meetup: practical demos, short talks, food, and enough hallway time for the network to form.
- FV + AI, Fraser ValleyThe Fraser Valley chapter, carrying the people and spirit of Surrey AI across the region.
- CV + AI, Comox ValleyThe Island chapter, for people who want the AI conversation close to home.
- Every communityRegional chapters and special-interest groups in one place.
- The calendarEvery upcoming session, across every community.
The scale of it
Running since 2023.
Members are paying members of the nonprofit. Events are documented gatherings since the community began. Regions are the recurring regional rooms.
- 300+
- members
- 94+
- events since 2023
- 3
- active BC regions
Two ways in.
We build this with people, not for them.
The mission is to build recurring rooms where people across professions can learn, evaluate, adopt, refuse, and shape AI together. Everything above is what that looks like on a calendar.
More about the association