About Kris Krüg
Techartist, quasi-sage, cyberpunk anti-hero from the future.
I’m Kris Krüg — AI keynote speaker, creative technologist, photographer, and community builder working the messy edge where technology, creativity, ethics, and human weirdness collide.
The mission hasn’t changed in twenty years: humanize the tech, fight apathy, put creative tools in more hands, and build rooms with enough courage and imagination to shape what comes next instead of just bracing for it.
What I am building now
These days my work orbits AI, community infrastructure, and creative practice. I help people make sense of machine intelligence without surrendering taste, culture, relationships, or responsibility.
I lead and support AI ecosystem work in British Columbia, give keynotes and workshops for creative and leadership audiences, build standalone learning portals around major talks, and help teams turn AI from vague pressure into useful practice.
The photography still matters. It is the visual storytelling background that taught me how rooms work, how movements feel, and how culture changes when people can actually see themselves inside the story.
Five rooms I’m in right now
Not a collection of old titles. These are the live rooms where I’m actually building, hosting, and arguing about AI in 2026.
BC + AI Ecosystem
The big one. A province-wide, member-owned AI ecosystem with Indigenous-led governance baked in from day one — meetups, policy rooms, working groups, and partnerships that actually ship.
Responsible AI Professional
Just launched. A four-week certification that turns “we should be responsible” into an actual practice. Built with Martin Lopatka and Sarah Downey; every grad ships their own ethics assistant.
AI Film Club
My monthly love letter to filmmakers figuring out AI without losing the plot. Co-run with Kevin Friel and Luke Minaker. Human creativity first, tools second.
The Upgrade AI
Where keynote energy becomes muscle memory — cohort training for creatives, sales teams, and journalists, plus the enterprises trying to catch up without the plastic consultant smell.
Vancouver AI Meetup
The room that started it all. Monthly demos, arguments, and first drafts of the future — the live heartbeat under everything BC + AI became.
Past chapter, still load-bearing: through 2024–2025 I was CTO at Indigenomics.ai, building technology for Indigenous economic sovereignty. That work didn’t end so much as move in — it’s embedded in how BC + AI does governance, from OCAP data principles to opening every gathering with Indigenous protocol.
Start with the live projects
This is the current map: AI community infrastructure, keynote portals, and practical training resources that turn ideas into usable public artifacts.
BC + AI Ecosystem
Community and industry infrastructure for a responsible and inclusive AI future in British Columbia.
Both Hands Full
A keynote portal about keeping our souls intact while the machines get very good at making everything.
Punk Rock AI
Human agency, taste, and making culture with the tools without flattening ourselves into content machines.
Developing an AI Mindset
A practical starting point for teams and organizations learning to work with AI.
Find the right thread
This page is the biography. The deeper proof lives across a few focused pages, so search engines and humans can both follow the actual story.
The throughline
Humanize technology
Technology should resonate with the heartbeat of human experience, not bulldoze it. The point is not novelty. The point is agency, empathy, ethics, and imagination.
Fight apathy
I would rather be in the room than in the stands: challenging indifference, turning passive media consumption into active creation, and helping people participate.
Democratize art
Art is not a rarefied luxury. It is a common language. The best creative tools should help more people find their voice, not make everyone sound the same.
Build community
Communities are how ideas become durable. Convening is infrastructure for trust, courage, and collective action.
Photo proof, or how I got here
Before AI became the shiny object, I spent years with a camera in rooms where technology, activism, music, climate, celebrity, Indigenous leadership, startup culture, and internet history were all colliding.
The wild index
The old page had the right instinct: the giant lists are interesting because they show range. This version keeps the range, gives it shape, and makes the proof easier to scan.
Published, featured, or cited by
See the publications page for the deeper legacy list and source trail.
Portraits, interviews, and backstage moments
Clients, collaborators, and rooms served
The point is not name-dropping for its own sake. The range matters because it shows a career built inside real rooms: broadcast, activism, education, technology, culture, policy, festivals, and public imagination.
Things people bring me in for
AI keynote speaking
High-energy rooms that need clarity, courage, cultural literacy, and practical next steps.
AI mindset workshops
Hands-on sessions for teams learning to work with AI while protecting judgment and taste.
Community and ecosystem building
Convening, partner strategy, sponsorship, association building, and durable network infrastructure.
Creative technology strategy
Story systems, knowledge bases, archives, media, and tools that help organizations become more alive.