BC + AI transformed from an 80-person studio gathering into British Columbia’s largest grassroots AI ecosystem in under two years, registering as a nonprofit with Indigenous board leadership, 130 founding members, and multiple regional chapters by August 2025. This is the story of how ceremony, community, and careful optimism built something unprecedented in Canada’s AI landscape.
The spark: January 2024 ignites Vancouver’s AI scene
Vancouver’s AI community didn’t exist as an organized force until January 25, 2024, when Kris Krüg opened the doors of MØTLEYKRÜG Media headquarters for the first Vancouver AI Community Meetup (#VAI01). The event sold out immediately, 80 people packed into a studio space at 290 W. 3rd Avenue, tucked inside the Vancouver Biennale Art Warehouse. Unlike typical tech meetups, this gathering integrated Indigenous ceremony from day one: Gabriel George Sr. of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation opened with traditional songs, establishing what would become the community’s defining characteristic, ceremony before innovation, relationships before transactions.
The inaugural event featured Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen, researchers from SFU and Emily Carr University, and AI artists displaying interactive installations. But the most significant element was the foundational principle of radical inclusivity. As Krüg stated: “Our ethos is simple yet profound: to welcome everyone intrigued by AI’s potential. From seasoned researchers to budding artists, from tech enthusiasts to curious students.” No pitches, no pyramid schemes, just genuine peer-to-peer learning.
The timing proved perfect. ChatGPT had exploded into public consciousness just months earlier, and Vancouver’s creative and tech communities were hungry for a space to process the implications. The first meetup validated this appetite, word-of-mouth alone drove consistent sellouts for the next several months.
Explosive growth forces venue upgrade within four months
By May 30, 2024 (#VAI05), attendance had surged to over 135 people, nearly double the original venue capacity. The community was outgrowing its intimate studio origins. Monthly meetups on the last Thursday of each month had become Vancouver’s must-attend AI event, drawing a remarkable cross-section: developers sat next to photographers, Indigenous knowledge keepers discussed data sovereignty with machine learning researchers, and performance artists integrated generative music into their presentations.
This wasn’t typical tech networking. Gabriel George’s Eagle Song ceremony opened every gathering, creating what community members described as a “sacred container” for technical discussions. His teaching that “our people saw it coming, they said one day our world would be connected by a web” connected ancient Indigenous prophecies to modern AI development, reframing technological progress through a lens of interconnectedness and ethical responsibility.
The rapid growth necessitated a venue upgrade. By mid-2024, Krüg had negotiated a partnership with the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, whose Executive Director Lorraine Lowe recognized the alignment between space exploration themes and AI’s frontier territory. The Space Centre’s planetarium could accommodate 200+ people and provided professional AV equipment. This partnership would prove crucial, Lowe would later join the nonprofit board, cementing the institutional relationship.
Indigenous wisdom becomes operational framework, not decoration
While many tech events include perfunctory land acknowledgments, BC + AI embedded Indigenous perspectives as its philosophical operating system. Gabriel George wasn’t performing ceremony as a courtesy; his teachings shaped how the community understood networks, data, relationships, and collective responsibility.
Gabriel’s great-great grandmother had lived in the village where the Space Centre now stands before colonial authorities forcibly relocated her family. This personal connection to the land made every gathering at the Space Centre a profound act of return and reclamation. His grandfather was Chief Dan George, the Oscar-nominated actor and cultural icon, and Gabriel carried forward that legacy of bridging Indigenous wisdom with contemporary society.
The community learned that Indigenous elders had predicted the internet centuries before its invention, describing “a web covering the world” and “longhouses reaching to the sky.” Most powerfully, they prophesied that “when the eagle landed on the moon,” Indigenous communities would begin their revival. In 1969, as NASA transmitted “the eagle has landed,” this ancient prediction materialized. Gabriel connected these prophecies to AI development: technology isn’t alien to Indigenous thought, it’s the latest iteration of the planetary web ancestors foresaw.
These weren’t just inspiring stories. Indigenous principles actively shaped community values: OCAP protocols (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) became non-negotiable for data governance. The Indigenomics framework, emphasizing relationship over transaction, long-term thinking over extraction, guided partnership decisions. The community adopted Gabriel’s teaching that attendees become “human recorders responsible for sharing what they learn,” transforming passive participation into sacred responsibility.
Education initiatives democratize AI access across BC
While monthly meetups built community, The Upgrade AI (co-founded by Krüg and Peter Bittner in late 2023) provided structured professional education. The first cohort for creative professionals launched March 11, 2024, offering a 6-week certification program that treated AI as a “force multiplier for human expertise, not a replacement.”
The education model proved remarkably successful. By November 2025, The Upgrade had trained over 1,000 professionals through 50+ workshops, with 92% expressing interest in sector-specific training and 88% of graduates implementing AI tools in their work. The program achieved 95% satisfaction rates and fostered 40% average productivity gains.
Crucially, The Upgrade maintained accessibility. 40% of participants came from underrepresented groups, women, Indigenous peoples, visible minorities. A partnership with Circle Innovation’s RISE in BC program provided 30% co-funding for eligible British Columbia SMEs, removing financial barriers. The program expanded throughout 2024-2025 to serve multiple professions: journalists (partnering with Google News Initiative), PR professionals, sales leaders, and healthcare workers.
In parallel, the ED + AI initiative launched in 2024-2025 to bring educators into the conversation. The second ED + AI meetup in October 2025 drew a “packed house” of K-12 teachers, post-secondary instructors, parents, students, and EdTech builders. Working groups formed to develop Human-Centered AI in Education guidelines, addressing thorny issues like assessment redesign, youth data consent, and access disparities across districts. As the community stated: “Education should not be an afterthought in the AI conversation. It should be a central force shaping how AI is imagined, designed, and applied.”
Surrey expansion proves the decentralized model works
The first major test of BC + AI’s distributed vision came with Surrey AI’s launch on March 11, 2025. Matthew Schwartzman, just 19 years old and based in Maple Ridge, had been making the grueling commute to Vancouver meetups. As he told attendees at #VAI13 in January 2025: “After sitting on Highway 1 for an hour, I’m pretty sure I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
Schwartzman and Ryv Valiquette (from White Rock) announced they would create a “Surrey style version in Surrey”, half the price of Vancouver events, lighter programming, better parking, and accessible to people working until 5 PM. The timing was strategic: Surrey has significant AI activity in logistics, transportation, mechatronics, and agritech, but Fraser Valley residents often couldn’t justify the Vancouver commute.
Surrey AI #1 launched at Royal Canadian Legion Branch #8, establishing a monthly schedule (second Tuesday) that wouldn’t conflict with Vancouver’s last-Thursday rhythm. The response validated the model, nine consecutive monthly meetups ran through November 2025, with professional photography, consistent attendance, and growing institutional support.
By November 12, 2025, Invest Surrey (the city’s economic development agency) had committed to joining BC + AI and partnering on a December Innovation Boulevard-themed meetup. Tyler and his team saw Surrey AI as essential infrastructure for positioning the rapidly growing city as an innovation hub. Plans emerged for a quantum computing event at SFU Surrey in February 2026, establishing Surrey’s presence in emerging technologies.
Surrey AI proved the concept: community-led AI education could thrive outside major tech hubs, empowering young leaders, serving local needs, and operating sustainably with grassroots + institutional support. This success inspired additional regional nodes, Victoria, Squamish, and discussions in Kelowna, all following the BC + AI blueprint of ceremony, inclusivity, and radical localism.
Carol Ann Hilton’s five minutes that changed everything
While Gabriel George provided ceremonial grounding, Carol Ann Hilton brought the economic and philosophical framework. As CEO of the Indigenomics Institute and a board member of the emerging nonprofit, Hilton had spent years developing Indigenomics, a movement to build a $100 billion Indigenous economy in Canada by reframing economic relationships through Indigenous values.
At the August 27, 2025 nonprofit launch event (#VAI20), following Gabriel’s Eagle Song, Hilton delivered what community members describe as “5 minutes that laid the philosophical foundation for everything that followed.” She began with the Indigenomics Institute’s guiding question: “How are you showing up tonight?”, not small talk but a governing inquiry now brought into AI community governance.
Her core framework asked: “What are we responding to? Why are we here?” She didn’t offer platitudes about the chaotic state of the world. Instead, she reframed chaos using the Chinese symbol: “Chaos = creative potential. AI transformation is opportunity for conscious creation, not fear.”
Most radical was her teaching on decolonizing prescribed meaning: “As much as meaning has been prescribed to us and each one of our heritage and legacies… there was a prescription of meaning applied onto our humanity.” Colonial systems imposed meanings and limits on all peoples. AI offers a chance to rewrite meaning aligned with real values, understanding imposed prescriptions enables conscious choices and creates new freedoms.
She challenged the room: “What does it feel like to put love in the code? Love in the land? Love in the culture?” This wasn’t poetry but protocol, love as organizing principle. Her speech ensured the BC AI Ecosystem Association would maintain ceremonial practice as governance structure, ground technology in traditional wisdom, prioritize relationships over networking, and connect AI to economic justice and decolonization.
Hilton’s work with Krüg (who serves as CTO of Indigenomics Institute) produced the indigenomics.ai platform, AI-driven tools incorporating Indigenous values while supporting economic sovereignty. Their collaboration demonstrated that Indigenous perspectives weren’t symbolic additions but foundational to building ethical AI systems.
The decision to formalize: nonprofit status in August 2024
By spring 2024, after roughly 20 months of grassroots organizing, the community faced a critical decision. Could they remain an informal network, or did sustainable growth require formal structure?
The debate played out in planning meetings through early summer 2024. Arguments for nonprofit status were compelling:
Credibility for funding: Government grants and corporate sponsorships required formal entitiesCollective voice: Aggregate community power for policy advocacySustainable operations: Move beyond “duct tape and vibes” to professional infrastructureResource circulation: Enable province-wide learning and knowledge sharing
But concerns existed about losing the grassroots spirit. The community was determined this would NOT become “Silicon Valley 2.0” or another corporate-controlled industry association. The structure needed to preserve ceremony, radical inclusivity, Indigenous leadership, and community-first decision making.
By mid-August 2024, the decision was made. BC + AI registered as the BC AI Ecosystem Association nonprofit society, with three board members appointed:
Carol Ann Hilton (Indigenomics Institute) – Indigenous leadership and philosophical frameworkLorraine Lowe (H.R. MacMillan Space Centre) – institutional partnership and venue supportKris Krüg – founder and community organizer
The board structure ensured Indigenous perspectives weren’t advisory but governing. Carol Ann’s position meant every major decision would be filtered through Indigenomics principles and protocols. This was structural, not symbolic.
August 27, 2025: 250 people witness the official launch
Vancouver AI Community Meetup #20 doubled as the nonprofit launch party. Approximately 250 people filled the Space Centre planetarium on August 27, 2025, twenty times the first gathering eighteen months earlier. The program captured everything BC + AI had become:
6:00 PM: Doors opened to networking and food
Indigenous Ceremony: Gabriel George’s Eagle Song filled the planetarium dome
Carol Ann Hilton: Five-minute philosophical framework address
Jos Duncan-Asé (flying in from Philadelphia): “Love + AI” ethics framework
Peter Bittner (flying in from Seattle): “The Future of Work” and upskilling urgency
Hackathon winners: $2,500 prizes for data storytelling projects
8:20 PM: Official nonprofit announcement and founding member roll call
The timing was strategic. Registration had occurred approximately one week prior (around August 20, 2024), but the community waited for this milestone 20th meetup to celebrate publicly. It was both commemoration and declaration of intent.
Thirty-four members signed up that first night. Within the first 2.5 months (by early November 2025), the association had enrolled 130 paid members, an average of 50 members per month. This exceeded expectations and validated the hybrid model: free or low-cost events for accessibility, paid membership for committed participants seeking deeper benefits.
Membership model balances access with sustainability
The founding member drive (running through December 31, 2025) offered five tiers designed to serve different community segments:
Student: $80/year (1 seat, proof of enrollment required)Individual: $240/year (1 seat for freelancers and independent practitioners)Micro Pack: $600/year (5 seats for small teams)Growth Pack: $1,400/year (12 seats for growing organizations)Enterprise Patron: $3,000/year (30 seats for large organizations)
The first 100 members would lock “Founder ’25” badges and shape bylaws, governance by those who showed up early. Benefits stacked strategically: 25% off Vancouver AI meetups, training discounts, coworking access, weekly Office Hours, Discord community, member directory, and voice in policy decisions.
A critical debate occurred in the August 25, 2025 onboarding meeting: Should the founding period be time-limited (December 31) or number-limited (first 100 people)? The decision went for time-based with no numeric cap, allowing expansion to other BC regions (Prince George, Kelowna, Vancouver Island) before closing the founding period. The logic: a professional network of 250 founders would be more powerful than an exclusive club of 25.
Behind the scenes: challenges turned into design features
The nonprofit formation wasn’t seamless. Website payment integration was rushed to completion just before the August 27 launch. The membership model required integrating Stripe with a new bank account, building a member database with sequential numbering, and automating email sequences for 15,000+ contacts.
A delicate transition involved existing Vancouver Core AI annual ticket holders who had paid $450 for year-long event access. The new membership cost just $240 annually but offered expanded benefits. Through transparent voice messages to existing supporters, the community offered BC + AI membership at approximately $200 (slight discount) and transitioned the Core AI channel to a members-only space. The approach, transparency over perfection, maintained trust during structural change.
Geographic equity required creative solutions. Surrey AI offered half-price tickets and better parking than downtown Vancouver. The BC + AI Youth Access Fund provided scholarships for participants under 20 or over 80, along with support for bus rides to hackathons and certification costs. The community’s philosophy: “Small, real dollars to the exact places that open doors.”
Documentation presented another challenge. With 23+ monthly meetups generating hours of video, transcripts, and photos, how could knowledge be captured and shared? The solution involved comprehensive recording systems, Notion databases, custom AI tools trained on transcripts, and professional photography at every event. This created a searchable knowledge commons that turned ephemeral gatherings into permanent community assets.
Tech ecosystem activities build connective tissue
Beyond monthly meetups, BC + AI developed multiple programs to build British Columbia’s AI ecosystem:
Data Storytelling Hackathon (launched February 26, 2025): Rival Technologies committed $10,000 across four rounds, challenging participants to tell compelling stories with data and AI. The first winner, Sev Geraskin, created “Hot Dogma”, a data-driven philosophical analysis with 3D visualization answering “Is a hotdog a sandwich?” Subsequent rounds explored Canadian identity, BC’s AI story, and the soundtrack of human experience.
Office Hours (launched September 2025): Weekly Thursday sessions became the “operational backbone” for BC + AI programming. Equal parts creative jam, civic briefing, and peer mentoring, Office Hours facilitated project collaborations, funding discussions, GitHub tutorials, and member connections. By November 2025, Office Hours were “on fire” with founders matching with investors and new collaborations launching weekly.
Creative Mornings Partnership (announced August 2025): BC + AI partnered with Creative Mornings Vancouver, Mark Busse’s decade-old tradition of free creative gatherings. The partnership united “two of Vancouver’s most generative creative forces” with plans for a Spring 2026 “Creative AI Jam” event. Both organizations center creativity, ethics, and the Commons while refusing Silicon Valley monoculture.
Academic Partnerships: MetaCreation Lab at SFU donated $15,000+ in equipment. UBC’s Emerging Media Lab collaborated on research. Northeastern University integrated industry programs. These partnerships ensured BC + AI remained connected to cutting-edge research while maintaining its community-first approach.
Government Relations: The community prepared briefings for provincial ministers, participated in federal AI Task Force consultations, and positioned itself as a grassroots counterweight to corporate AI advocacy. Three BC women sat on Canada’s national AI Task Force, keeping provincial and Indigenous voices in federal AI strategy development.
Community culture: stoked and careful at the same time
By November 2025, BC + AI had developed a distinctive culture captured in phrases that became community touchstones:
“Stoked + careful at the same time”: Balancing enthusiasm for AI’s potential with vigilance about its risks. Not techno-utopianism or techno-pessimism but critical optimism.
“In this canoe together”: Carol Ann Hilton’s Indigenous metaphor for collective journey, adopted community-wide to describe shared purpose.
“Ceremony first, then innovation”: Indigenous protocols as prerequisite, not afterthought. Every event, policy discussion, and partnership began with grounding in values.
“Amplifying creativity, not replacing humans”: The Upgrade AI’s core philosophy, AI as force multiplier for human expertise.
“Multi-modal, multi-cultural, radically local, and future-facing”: The community’s self-description, emphasizing diversity and place-based innovation.
“No gatekeeping”: Radical inclusivity inherited from Creative Mornings Vancouver, welcoming all skill levels and backgrounds.
The community’s attendance metrics told the growth story: from 80 people in a studio (January 2024) to 135+ in an overcrowded venue (May 2024) to 250+ at the Space Centre (August 2025+), with events consistently selling out. The demographic mix remained distinctive: 35% technology workers, 25% creative industries, 20% academia, 10% public policy, a rare cross-sector blend in AI gatherings.
Documentation captured explosive growth. UBC’s BC Studies Journal published a case study on Vancouver AI Community Meetups, describing “early successes offer valuable lessons for emerging AI communities worldwide.” The community earned recognition as “British Columbia’s largest grassroots AI network” and “Canada’s premier monthly gathering focused on ethical, community-driven AI development.”
Critical turning points that shaped the journey
Certain moments proved pivotal in BC + AI’s evolution:
The first sellout (January 25, 2024) validated community appetite and established the format that would persist: ceremony, speakers, demos, performances, networking, all in service of collective learning rather than individual gain.
Reaching 135+ attendees (May 30, 2024) forced the venue upgrade to Space Centre, enabling 3x growth and establishing BC + AI as Vancouver’s premier AI gathering.
Surrey AI’s launch (March 11, 2025) proved the distributed model worked, demonstrating that 19-year-old Matthew Schwartzman could successfully lead a regional chapter without top-down control.
Carol Ann Hilton’s board appointment and August 27 speech ensured Indigenous perspectives weren’t consultative but governing, embedding Indigenomics principles into nonprofit DNA.
The nonprofit registration (August 2024) enabled sustainable operations, grant access, and collective advocacy while maintaining grassroots values through careful board composition and governance design.
Reaching 130 paid members within 2.5 months validated the membership model and created financial runway for 2026 programming expansion.
The Creative Mornings partnership signaled maturation, BC + AI had grown from startup to established force, worthy of collaboration with Vancouver’s most respected creative institution.
The ecosystem map: 480 organizations and counting
Behind the scenes, BC + AI maintained a comprehensive ecosystem map tracking 480 British Columbia AI organizations, startups, research labs, nonprofits, government agencies, and educational institutions. This wasn’t passive directory maintenance but active network weaving, connecting organizations that should know each other, identifying collaboration opportunities, and mapping the province’s AI capabilities.
The community developed extensive funding resources, helping members navigate 200+ grants, loans, and investment programs for nonprofits, startups, and researchers working with AI in BC. Updated monthly and community-tested, these resources helped dozens of members secure funding. This knowledge commons approach, making typically siloed information openly accessible, exemplified BC + AI’s values.
Three rounds of public opinion research (partnership with Angus Reid and Rival Technologies) surveyed 1,001 British Columbia residents about AI attitudes, concerns, and priorities. This data informed community programming and provided evidence for policy advocacy. When BC + AI spoke to government, they came with actual data about what British Columbians wanted from AI development.
Looking forward: the movement is just beginning
By November 2025, BC + AI stood as proof that grassroots organizing could build significant AI infrastructure outside corporate control. Monthly Vancouver meetups continued (#VAI23 in November, #VAI24 planned for December with BC AI Awards). Surrey AI ran its ninth consecutive meetup. ED + AI working groups drafted Human-Centered AI in Education frameworks. The Upgrade AI ran multiple concurrent certification cohorts across professions.
The founding member period runs through December 31, 2025, with expansion planned to Prince George, Kelowna, and Vancouver Island. December’s BC AI Awards will recognize British Columbia’s AI innovators, builders, and ethical leaders. Spring 2026 brings the Creative AI Jam with Creative Mornings Vancouver. Web Summit Vancouver offers opportunity for BC + AI to be “Team BC home base” with community activations and hackathon sprints.
But the numbers tell only part of the story. More significant is the culture BC + AI established: that ceremony comes before innovation, that Indigenous wisdom guides technical decisions, that education should be accessible not gatekept, that communities outside Vancouver matter, that love can be a technical specification, that AI should amplify human creativity not replace it.
From 80 people in a studio to 130 paid members of a nonprofit with regional chapters, Indigenous board leadership, and national recognition, all in under two years. Not through venture capital or corporate sponsorship but through ceremony, community, and careful optimism. This is BC + AI’s story: the grassroots journey from meetup to movement, proving that another way of building AI’s future is not just possible but already happening in British Columbia.