A Socio-Technical System Designer’s Adventures in AI (w/ The AI Collective)
What kind of intelligence are we actually building?
Labs are making bold claims.
Governments are scrambling to respond.
The race to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has become the defining narrative of our technological moment. But underneath all the noise, a quieter and equally important question is emerging: whether the intelligence we are building is truly general, or something far more specific, contextual, and shaped by the human systems around it. At this event we are bringing a designer's lens to that question. One grounded in real-world context and the gap between what AI can do and what we need it to do.
You'll walk away with:
A clearer framework for your role as a designer in an AI-assisted workflow
Practical language for the human-AI partnership
A community of Edmonton practitioners asking the same hard questions
This one is for designers, product leaders, engineers, and anyone who wants to stay intentional in an increasingly automated world.
🤝 Networking from 5:15 PM
🎤 Talk from 6:00 to 7:00 PM
🍽 Food and drinks from 7:00 to 7:45 PM
🎟 Free. Seats are limited.
🗓 2nd April 2026
📍 Edmonton Unlimited, 10107 Jasper Avenue NW, Edmonton, Alberta, T5J 1W8
About the speaker:
Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski is a design strategist, researcher, and coach whose practice is rooted in Feldenkrais-inspired methods that build functional awareness through guided design work.
He advocates for applying transformative design thinking and participatory design methods to the creation of new value, media, user experiences, and social change. He is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Visual Arts at Thompson Rivers University. He is a former creative director of the emerging technologies conference EmTech at MIT. Prior to that, Peter's design consulting career included 15 years of working on user experience (UX) design, retail, and branding programs for organizations, including global brands, start-ups, non-profit groups, and educational institutions such as MIT, Astra Zeneca, Glad, Kraft, and Loblaws. He is a recipient of the MIT President's Citation Award for his research, design, and strategy work for the MIT Enterprise Forum.
Please be advised: Unfortunately, space is very limited at these community events and we can not always accept everyone we would like to. If you are not accepted to this event, please keep applying! We appreciate your application tremendously and we are looking forward to seeing you at a future event very soon!
The AI Collective is a global non-profit building the human layer for the AI era. We unite 200,000+ leaders, builders, and stakeholders across 100+ forums worldwide to democratize the frontier, build trust, and coordinate how society navigates the rapid acceleration of technological progress.
All attendees and organizers at events affiliated with The AI Collective agree to our privacy policy and are subject to our code of conduct.