Love in the Code: Vancouver AI Community Meetup #20

Sep 16, 2025

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Vancouver AI Community Meetup #20 — land, love, learning, and launch. Featuring Love Now Media’s Jos Duncan on AI ethics & advocacy, Peter Bitner on the future of work, and Rival’s data storytelling hackathon winners.

Plus: BC + AI Ecosystem Association launch, Ethos Lab AI.EDU, Surrey AI, and SIGGRAPH demos.

Join BC + AI: https://bc-ai.ca/membership/

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Welcome to Vancouver AI Community Meetup #20... a night grounded in place and propelled by purpose.

Opening & Land We gathered in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, welcomed by Gabriel George Sr, with story and Eagle song.
Keynote: Love Now Media Jos Duncan (Philadelphia) shares a values-led path for love & AI: transparent AI use, mission-aligned ethics policies, and a new AI Advocacy Initiative to reduce harms (IP, environment, labor) and uplift what’s working.
Future of Work:The Upgrade Peter Bitner (upgrade.ai) on upskilling as the bottleneck, AI literacy frameworks, and building cultures where experimentation + critical thinking thrive.
Rival Technologies AI Data Storytelling Hackathon • Prajwal Prasanth: “semantic maps + roundtable voices” that let clusters debate each other. • Sev Geraskin (Bear × Bunny) — AGI Data Interface: choose-your-own-adventure insights with dynamic viz and narration (Hall of Fame inductee). • Dean Shev (aka Chazzz) — full album generated from BC AI survey + meetup transcripts; 17 tracks turning community data into music.

Community Launch Introducing the BC + AI Ecosystem Association (BC + AI) — a nonprofit container for meetups, hackathons, EDU, creative industries, public sector collabs, and more. Join, contribute, and help shape an ethical, inclusive AI future in BC.

AI.EDU & Sub-Communities

• Ethos Lab — youth AI experimentation (Grades 8–12) + EDU meetup.

• Surrey AI — hands-on monthly sessions (games, “AI or Not?” challenges).

• SIGGRAPH Snaps — community demos incl. John Mutter (gen-video compositing) and Ahmed (Creative: no-code, multi-platform game engine).

Join BC + AI and AI meetup ecosystem.

• Check out Rival/Reach3 data sets and demo projects.

Subscribe for talks, hackathon showcases, and ethical AI resources.