Last week BC + AI Ecosystem Association crossed 300 members.

I know 300 can look like just another number on the internet. In real life, it is a lot of people. And this one means a lot to me.

BC + AI started with a handful of us getting together in rooms around Vancouver, trying to understand what was happening with AI and how British Columbia could have a real hand in shaping it.

We kept meeting. People brought their work, their questions, their friends, their disagreements, and a willingness to help. More people joined. Communities started forming. Programs grew out of conversations. Somewhere along the way, this became a real organization.

Now there are 300 of us across the province. Communities are growing, events and programs run all year, Futureproof Festival of AI is coming in October, and people at every level of this thing are starting to pay attention.

That momentum is exciting. But what I’m most grateful for is how people show up.

Members make introductions. They share what they know. They volunteer, take photos, bring snacks, offer advice, help with projects and stay late because the conversation is still going.

To everyone who joined us: thank you.

You trusted us while we were still figuring this thing out. Hell, we’re still figuring parts of it out. But now there are 300 of us doing it together. You helped make BC + AI useful, welcoming, interesting and real. 🙏

And if you have been following along from the edges, wondering whether you belong here, you are invited.

We are building British Columbia’s AI industry from the ground up, together.

Meet some of the people already here →

Vancouver AI Meetup #32. Wednesday, August 26, 6–10 PM at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre.

Gordon Hamilton from Data for Good Society BC opens with what nonprofits are actually doing with data and AI.

MP Taleeb Noormohamed, Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary for AI and Digital Innovation, is coming too. Not for a keynote-from-the-mountaintop. We’re putting him in a room with the local community and talking about where federal AI policy meets actual people building things.

Venessa Gonzales and her daughter, Makaidea, open the night with a Squamish welcome, song and blessing.

Misagh Azimi brings live art into the mix with an audiovisual performance using an AI instrument trained on his own music.

Bring a demo. Bring a doubt. Bring the project that is not finished yet.

The pitch is the most honest AI conversation happening this year. Critique in one hand, curiosity in the other, with no hype and no panic. Here is how a Vancouver meetup turned into a national invitation.

The Earlyworm pass is CA$650 through Saturday, August 22. After that it is CA$950. Have a look at who is coming.

Membership isn’t a badge for your LinkedIn profile. It’s how we pay for the rooms, programs, introductions and weird little experiments that make this community useful. You are buying year-round access to the BC + AI community and helping keep that community open.

And yes, there are practical perks. Members save 25% on every public Futureproof ticket. On the Earlyworm pass, that means CA$487.50 instead of CA$650.

An individual membership is CA$340 for the year. Students pay CA$115. Companies can buy packs of 5, 12, or 30 and hand them out to their people.

The discount is useful. The membership is bigger than the discount.

It’s member events, Office Hours, coworking, working groups, introductions, and the backchannels where people trade real leads and actually answer each other. It’s a way to have a hand in what we build next.

We got to 300 because people kept showing up.

Thank you, friends.

Kris Krüg
Founder & Curator, Futureproof Festival
Executive Director, BC + AI Ecosystem Association