Vancouver AI Community Meetup: 04/29
Vancouver AI is a neural network of curious humans bridging creative and technical spaces. We cultivate a commons where community values shape governance and prototypes become shared tools.
This month, we bring the AI Ethical Futures Lab to the main stage with two talks that ask hard questions about how we measure what matters in the AI age.
In a world of black-box algorithms and corporate capture, we are cultivating a commons. A space where prototypes become shared tools and community values become governance. We move from ephemeral noise to perpetual knowledge.
The Lineup
Chiyakselut aka Venessa Gonzales and Makaidea Gonzales: Squamish Nation
chiyakselut (Venessa Gonzales) and her daughter Makaidea Gonzales open with a Squamish West Coast traditional welcome song and blessing rooted in multi-generational knowledge.
Venessa's lineage bridges three nations: Squamish, Musqueam, and Cree from Saskatchewan. She harvests traditional medicines and teas, creates salves for healing ailments, and practices traditional arts... glass etching, wool weaving, cedar weaving. She teaches traditional games, ensuring cultural knowledge flows to the next generation.
Makaidea's presence embodies that flow: daughter learning alongside mother, carrying forward what ceremony means.
Martin Lopatka: Valtech
"Rawlsian Agents: An Application of LLMs to Forge Fairer Bilateral Agreements"
Operationalizing John Rawls' theory of justice through modern agentic workflows. Examining how AI systems can simulate contract negotiation while exploring both the promise and pitfalls of AI-mediated fairness.
Technology leader and applied researcher at Valtech working at the intersection of machine learning, AI ethics, and technology policy moving responsible AI from principle to practice in complex organizations. Ph.D. in forensic statistics from the University of Amsterdam.
Contributes to policy efforts including the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, and OWASP Top 10 for LLMs. Active in the privacy-enhancing technologies community.
Sev Geraskin: Economy of Wisdom, Polargrid
"Economy of Wisdom: Ethics for the AI Age"
Ethics for the AI Age: Current ethical frameworks struggle to evaluate AI systems that absorb massive resources while their impact on human flourishing remains unmeasured.
Sev introduces a quantifiable approach to moral accounting... frameworks for economic systems that measure care and relational contribution rather than productivity alone.
Co-Founder and VP of Engineering at PolarGrid, building North America's first real-time AI inference compute network. Co-founded the Economy of Wisdom Foundation to develop alternative economic frameworks that measure care and fulfillment rather than traditional productivity metrics.
His work bridges 20+ years of scaling mission-critical systems with new economic paradigms for the AI transformation ahead.
Kris Krüg - TheUpgrade.ai & BC + AI Ecosystem
Sev asks: what if we measured care instead of productivity? Martin asks: can AI help us be fairer? Same underlying question... different frameworks. Stay for the closing dialogue where they go head-to-head.
Aliza Schwartzman & Noa Titiesky: Slapd Treats
Two Vancouver students who turned a cookie side hustle into a legit operation. Aliza founded iBlush LipGloss; Noa has 200K+ TikTok followers. Together they run Slapd Treats and they've been feeding Vancouver AI since last year. Expect cookies.
Other Upcoming Events in Our Community
THE SPONSORS
Big thanks to the folks helping keep the lights on, the doors open, and the community infrastructure real:
Intellomx: Simon Haworth’s crew Intellomx is an AI-powered drug discovery platform that analyzes transcriptomic, genomic, and proteomic data to save up to 90% of pre-clinical development costs (recently joined J&J Innovation JLABS). Huge thanks for backing the ecosystem from the deep science end.
TheUpgrade.ai: AI training company walking the walk on democratizing AI skills: Fortune 500 workshops, creative pro certifications, and corporate training that doesn't treat people like idiots. They help organizations and individuals harness AI to amplify creativity and accelerate learning through practical, hands-on training
Community Partners
Metacreation Lab for Creative AI: Professor Philippe Pasquier and his lab are leading research in AI-driven creative systems, generative art, and computational creativity at School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.
Creative Mornings Vancouver: 14 years building Vancouver's creative community since before "community building" was a LinkedIn buzzword, and they let us cross-pollinate networks because they get that rising tides lift all boats.
HR MacMillan Space Centre: Our venue partner who hosts us every month and doesn't kick us out when conversations run past 10 PM. They're Vancouver's gateway to innovation and space education, making science accessible to everyone from kids to cosmos-obsessed adults.
Ethos Lab: Vancouver's Black + Indigenous youth-led studio on Main St where teens ship real products. Running AI Studios + Friday Night AI Experimentation Labs (Jan–Jun 2026) for BIPOC youth (14–24), plus the Blackathon in February honouring Hogan’s Alley.
About Vancouver AI
Vancouver AI is a neural network of curious humans mapping the terrain between technology and consciousness.
We run monthly gatherings where builders, researchers, artists, educators, founders, and students trade demos, tools, ethics, and hard questions....
Vancouver's AI community where artists, engineers, Indigenous leaders, and troublemakers build the future in the same room.
The 2026 Vancouver AI events calendar... twelve months of the most interesting AI community in the country.
The Movement: BC + AI Ecosystem Association
This meetup is part of BC + AI a member-driven nonprofit where meetups turn into working groups, prototypes turn into shared tools, and community values turn into governance.
We are building the public-interest infrastructure for AI in British Columbia ensuring that our local-first intelligence outlives its creators and powers the next era of West Coast innovation.
Vancouver AI was just the start. The ecosystem keeps growing across BC... Surrey, Victoria, Comox, Kelowna, and beyond... each node bringing its own culture, needs, and experiments.
Join BC + AI Ecosystem Association: https://bc-ai.ca/membership
250 paid founding members. BC's AI industry association built by the community, governed with Indigenous leadership, making national impact. Join us.