We put the full program up on September 21 and skipped the part where we tell you about it. Fixing that now.
For current session times and venues, see the live program.
Futureproof Festival runs October 28-30, with opening night and the daytime program at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre. Here is a handful of the sessions we would tell a friend not to miss.
Wednesday, October 28: Opening night
Pick up your badge, find your people, and settle in for a welcome to Squamish territory from Anthony Joseph of the Squamish Nation, before anything else is said from the stage. Then Amber Case, who wrote the book on calm technology, gives the first talk of the festival: Calm Technology in the Age of Loud Machines. After the AI Builders Fellows show their work, Brewster Kahle, who built the Internet Archive, takes the stage on public memory and what we owe the people who aren't born yet. A creative AI live set hands the night to the party.
Thursday, October 29: Making sense of it together
Breakfast together, then a day of talks and questions.
Sev Geraskin on who owns the infrastructure underneath all this. Kristen Delphos on how safety science gets translated for the public without being flattened. They come back together for questions about what we build, how we assess it, and how people trust it.
A filmmaker and a historian, back to back. Brett Gaylor brings BrainRot Revolution, his doctoral research on documentary games and critical data literacy: how playful, participatory work helps people question AI and imagine a different internet. Stephanie Dick on where our ideas about machine intelligence came from, and who got to decide what counts as knowledge.
Anselm joins the closing talks, followed by Charles Bicari with Creative AI in Technological Arts. Each talk has its own audience questions, then Kris Krüg closes Thursday with thanks and a look ahead to Friday.
Friday, October 30: What we build next
After breakfast and the opening welcome, Naomi Klein and Catherine Warren take the stage in A FanTrust Conversation with Naomi Klein. Thursday was where we are. Friday is what we build.
Sara Blenkhorn asks about life-centred AI and who owns what we build. Alexandra Samuel brings practical ways to work with AI.
Kevin Friel, who co-founded the BC + AI Film Club, gives Green Light Yourself: what happens when filmmakers make the thing and screen it. Mayumi Rollings runs an animation studio that uses AI everywhere and refuses to lose the artists. Then Philippe Pasquier with Creative AI: polarization and alternatives, and all three take questions together.
Michael Running Wolf builds machine learning for Indigenous language reclamation, and asks who owns the data, the systems and the future those tools make. Peter-Lucas Jones joins him for shared questions after their talks.
Ben Shneiderman closes the talks. He wrote the book on human-centered AI, and he makes the case for designs that hand people more power instead of replacing them.
The closing ceremony gives the room a chance to take stock. Then dinner is on your own before the closing party.
Everything else, every talk and every Q&A, is on the program page. Huge thanks to every speaker who said yes to this room.
One festival ticket covers all three days, closing party included. Get yours here.
Understand AI. Shape what comes next.
Updated October 29, 2026: Anselm and Charles Bicari replace Taleeb’s cancelled Thursday appearance, followed by Kris’s wrap and thank-yous.
Auditorium photo: Michelle Diamond.
