Next NorthGate Gen AI Meetup 🗓
We've got a great one coming up: two heavyweights in the AI film space sharing the stage.
Save the date — June 17, 2026. Venue details coming soon.
🎤 JUMP//CUT — Steve Newcomb (SNUK3M)
Steve Newcomb (SNUK3M) has been a central figure in AI since 2005, when he left the Stanford Research Institute to found Powerset, a joint effort between teams from Stanford, DARPA, Xerox PARC, and NASA to create the world's first AI powered search engine, which Microsoft later acquired and used as a foundation for Bing. Beyond Powerset, Steve led the team that saw the first email cross the chasm on a mobile phone, led the Stanford group that pioneered modern speech recognition, helped two engineers from Powerset become founders of a small company called GitHub, and helped found the Node.js Foundation. Most recently, he served as VP GM at Adobe, leading a 1,100 person effort to build its next generation AI Creative Cloud. He has since left Adobe to found JUMP//CUT bringing together the worlds of storytelling and technology with a team of top Hollywood writers, editors, and cinematographers alongside a team of leading AI researchers and agent orchestrators. JUMP//CUT aims to become the next AI Disney, creating franchise scaled storytelling worlds while open sourcing both the worlds themselves and the AI Studio behind them for free to creators worldwide.
🎤 Secret Level — Jason Zada
Jason Zada is an Emmy-winning director, creative visionary, and storyteller who has spent over 25 years at the forefront of technology and entertainment. Known for blending innovation with compelling narratives, he has created some of the most viral and culturally impactful projects, including Take This Lollipop, Elf Yourself, and The Forest. With 26 Cannes Lions, SXSW Best in Show honors, and billions of global views for his work, Zada has a proven track record of pushing creative boundaries. As the founder of Secret Level, the leading AI-native entertainment studio, he continues to pioneer the intersection of AI, storytelling, and filmmaking, redefining the future of entertainment.
Come for the demos, stay for the conversations — and keep them going afterward on our Discord: https://discord.gg/NbbX5Sx6N
Organized by: Steve Huber