Futureproof Festival · October 28 to 30, 2026 · H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
Here's the plan. It's still moving.
Three days at the Space Centre, in the order they happen. Keep the ones you want and this page remembers them for you.
0 keptUpdated September 2, 2026 · Locked means locked. Still moving means the time or the pairing could shift. Seat held means we know who, we can't say yet.
Wednesday · October 28
Amber Case, Brewster Kahle, a live set, and a party
Opening night
Badges from noon, the party from five, two keynotes back to back, then the room lets loose.
12:00–10:00 PM8 on the clock
Registration opens · lobby and exhibits · Badge pickup from noon. The building is open all afternoon, the exhibitor tables are up, and the room fills on its own before anything starts.
Community · Creativity
LockedLockedThe party starts at five. Ninety minutes to arrive, get a drink and find your people before anyone says a word from the stage.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
5:00–6:30 PMKris opens Futureproof Festival from the community's side of it. Why this room exists, who it is for, and what we are asking each other to build.
- Kris KrügFounder & Festival Director · BC + AI Ecosystem Association
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
- Resilience
- Gathering humans while the tools pull attention apart.
6:30–6:45 PMAmber wrote the book on calm technology, and the first talk of the festival is hers: what AI should feel like when it is built for people instead of markets, and what it costs us when it is not.
- Amber CaseFounder · Calm Tech Institute
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
6:45–7:15 PMBreak · refill · Ten minutes. Refill, stretch, say hello to the person next to you.
Brewster built the Internet Archive. Public memory, the open web, libraries, and what a civic AI owes the people who have not been born yet. Then questions from the room.
- Brewster KahleFounder & Digital Librarian · Internet Archive
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
- Resilience
- Gathering humans while the tools pull attention apart.
7:25–7:55 PM
Performance
Philippe Pasquier + Kris Krüg + more artists held
Artists with AI as their instrument: generative visuals, live-coded sound, and a room that gets louder as it goes. Twenty minutes, then the set hands the night to the party.
LockedLockedArtists with AI as their instrument: generative visuals, live-coded sound, and a room that gets louder as it goes. Twenty minutes, then the set hands the night to the party.
- Philippe PasquierProfessor & Director · Metacreation Lab, Simon Fraser University
- Kris KrügFounder & Festival Director · BC + AI Ecosystem Association
More artists held. Names to come.
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
- Builders
- Demos, craft, small models, open tools, and receipts over pitch decks.
7:55–8:15 PMCreativity · Community
LockedLocked
Thursday · October 29
Seven pairs on what AI is already doing to us
Day one
Loki, Shane, Anthonia and Jos, Simon, Sarah and Kristen, Brett and Stephanie, then Taleeb with Kris. A workshop after the talks, and the room stays open till ten.
8:00 AM–10:00 PM15 on the clock
Breakfast · registration · Breakfast and coffee in the building, with the registration desk open for anyone landing on day one.
Kris sets the day in ten minutes. Where we are, what Thursday is asking, and how the blocks talk to each other.
- Kris KrügFounder & Festival Director · BC + AI Ecosystem Association
9:00–9:10 AMLoki on what might actually be going on inside these things. The other seat on what living with them is doing to us. Twenty minutes each, then both of them on stage arguing about it.
- Loki JorgensonCTO & Director, Innovation · Circle Innovation
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
9:10–10:05 AMMorning break · coffee · exhibits · Coffee, and time with the exhibitor tables.
Shane on asking better questions than the machine. The other seat on what workplace AI quietly decides for you when you stop asking. Then both on stage.
- Shane GibsonFounder & Keynote Speaker · Professional Sales Academy
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
10:35–11:30 AMAnthonia on young people, especially Black youth, and who gets invited into the rooms where AI gets decided. Jos on empathy as a media practice and communities that own their own stories. Who it's being built for, asked by two people who already build for them.
- Anthonia OgundeleFounder & Executive Director · Ethọ́s Lab
- Jos Duncan-AséFounder · Love Now Media
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
11:30 AM–12:25 PMLunch · demo tables in the lounge · Lunch in the building, with demo tables open in the lounge.
Performance
Artist held. Name to come.
Lunch is over and the room needs waking up. A short live piece, all sound and texture, and then the afternoon.
Seat heldSeat heldLunch is over and the room needs waking up. A short live piece, all sound and texture, and then the afternoon.
Artist held. Name to come.
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
1:25–1:40 PMSimon on what AI is actually doing in drug discovery, and where the hype runs out. The other seat on what survives contact with real patients. The lab and the clinic, back to back, then both of them taking questions.
- Simon HaworthCEO · Intellomx
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
1:40–2:35 PMSarah on governance for real people: nonprofits adopting AI without losing the values they run on. Kristen on how safety science gets translated for the public without being flattened. Both of them do this for a living, and neither one gets to hand-wave.
- Sarah DowneyFounder · Sarah Downey Consulting
- Kristen DelphosVice President, Communications and Public Affairs · UL Research Institutes
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
2:35–3:30 PMAfternoon break · coffee · Coffee before the last two blocks.
Brett on synthetic media, surveillance, and what the documentary can still do about it. Stephanie on the long history of where our ideas about machine intelligence came from, and who got to decide what counts as knowledge. Who gets to tell the story, argued by a filmmaker and a historian.
- Brett GaylorVP Creative · Hololabs
- Stephanie DickAssistant Professor · School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
4:00–4:55 PMTaleeb sits at the federal AI policy table. Kris sits in this room. Canada's AI strategy meets the people who have to live in it: one conversation for the whole block, with questions from the floor.
- Taleeb NoormohamedMember of Parliament · Vancouver Granville
- Kris KrügFounder & Festival Director · BC + AI Ecosystem Association
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
4:55–5:50 PMFacilitator held. Name to come.
Ethics · Builders
Seat heldSeat heldThe talks end and the room turns into a workshop. Ninety minutes on ethics in motion, hands on, and you walk out with something you made.
Facilitator held. Name to come.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Builders
- Demos, craft, small models, open tools, and receipts over pitch decks.
6:00–7:30 PMCommunity · Creativity
LockedLocked
Friday · October 30
Six pairs on what we build, then the closer
Day two
Alexandra, Ana and Mayumi, Zaro, Sev and Kaoru, Sara, Michael, and one more we can't name yet. Then the closing party. It's in your pass.
8:00 AM–10:00 PM15 on the clock
Breakfast · Breakfast and coffee in the building before day two.
Five minutes from Kris to turn the corner. Thursday was where we are. Friday is what we build.
- Kris KrügFounder & Festival Director · BC + AI Ecosystem Association
9:00–9:05 AMAlexandra on working with AI without handing it your judgment. The other seat on what the practice actually looks like with your hands on the tools every day. Then both on stage, comparing notes.
- Alexandra SamuelTechnology Journalist & Author · Independent
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Literacy
- Plain-language confidence for people who refuse to be dazzled or dismissed.
- Builders
- Demos, craft, small models, open tools, and receipts over pitch decks.
9:05–10:00 AMAna leads OCAD University. Mayumi runs an animation studio that uses AI everywhere and refuses to lose the artists. Where the work gets made, from the institution and from the studio floor, and what each one owes the artists inside it.
- Ana SerranoPresident & Vice-Chancellor · OCAD University
- Mayumi RollingsFounder & CEO · Tiny Ghost Studios
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
- Builders
- Demos, craft, small models, open tools, and receipts over pitch decks.
10:00–10:55 AMMorning break · coffee · Coffee, and a walk to the windows.
Zaro on community as an operating system, learned inside some of gaming's biggest franchises. The other seat on resilience at the scale of the whole planet. Same problem, wildly different scales, then both on stage.
- ZaroCommunity Futurist · Electronic Arts
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
- Resilience
- Gathering humans while the tools pull attention apart.
11:25 AM–12:20 PMLunch · Lunch in the building.
Performance
Artist held. Name to come.
A scripted short piece with a soundtrack made just for it. Twenty minutes to bring everyone back after lunch.
Seat heldSeat heldA scripted short piece with a soundtrack made just for it. Twenty minutes to bring everyone back after lunch.
Artist held. Name to come.
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
1:20–1:40 PMSev is building a real-time AI inference network. Kaoru runs partner development for ByteDance's enterprise AI platform. What actually survives the trip from demo to production, and what it costs. Then both on stage.
- Sev GeraskinCo-Founder & VP of Engineering · PolarGrid · Economy of Wisdom Foundation
- Kaoru YoshihiraHead of Partner Development · BytePlus
- Builders
- Demos, craft, small models, open tools, and receipts over pitch decks.
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
1:40–2:35 PMSara on life-centred design and who gets to own what we build. The other seat on regeneration at the largest scale anyone designs at. Planetary scale, from two people who mean it literally.
- Sara BlenkhornDirector of Innovation · Buckminster Fuller Institute
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Resilience
- Gathering humans while the tools pull attention apart.
- Builders
- Demos, craft, small models, open tools, and receipts over pitch decks.
2:35–3:30 PMAfternoon break · community photo · Coffee, and the whole room in one photograph.
Michael builds machine learning for Indigenous language reclamation, and asks who owns the data, the systems and the future those tools make. The other seat comes at the same question from the land.
- Michael Running WolfChair, Board of Directors · IndigiGenius
Second seat held. We know who, we can't say yet.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
4:00–4:55 PMSeat held for the closer. Name to come.
Ethics · Resilience
Seat heldSeat heldThe last talk of Futureproof Festival, on designs that hand people more power instead of replacing them. One voice, the whole block, and we know exactly who.
Seat held for the closer. Name to come.
- Ethics
- Critical voices staying at the table until moral weight becomes practice.
- Resilience
- Gathering humans while the tools pull attention apart.
4:55–5:50 PMCommunity · Resilience
LockedLockedFifteen minutes to say what we heard, what is still unresolved, and where Futureproof Festival goes from here.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
- Resilience
- Gathering humans while the tools pull attention apart.
6:00–6:15 PMMusic, art, and the conversations that are not ready to end. It's in your pass. Lights out at ten.
- Philippe PasquierProfessor & Director · Metacreation Lab, Simon Fraser University
- Kris KrügFounder & Festival Director · BC + AI Ecosystem Association
More artists held. Names to come.
- Creativity
- Film, performance, creative practice, and the strange weather AI makes in public.
- Community
- Actual people finding their role in the work instead of watching the show.
7:30–10:00 PM
Certification days
Two certification days before the festival, two after. Separate tickets, through BC + AI.
Arrive early
Stay longer
Three days, one pass
Everything on this page comes with a Festival Pass.
Opening night, both program days, the performances and the parties. The certification days are separate, through BC + AI.