Futureproof Festival 2026

The most honest AI conversation happening anywhere this year. No hype. No panic. Just real people shaping what comes next.

This is year one, so we are keeping it simple: one opening night, two program days, one shared arc, and a deliberately small crowd.

The point is not to make another generic AI conference. The point is to set the foundation for a different kind of festival: human, specific, useful, public, and honest enough to hold critique beside curiosity.

Who belongs here

Futureproof is for artists, engineers, educators, ethicists, filmmakers, founders, students, healthcare workers, researchers, investors, policy people, organizers, skeptics, and curious citizens.

Come excited. Come skeptical. Come unsettled. Come with the question you keep asking after the demo ends.

Visit the Futureproof website: https://www.futureproof.website/

What the three days look like

Wednesday, Oct 28: Opening night - live performances, talks, immersive art, demos, creative AI culture and the first gathering of the founding Futureproof Festival community.

Thursday, Oct 29: Where we are - Talks, demos, working conversations, and the 2nd Annual BC + AI Film Festival inside the AI festival.

Friday, Oct 30: What we build.

Hackathon Demo Day hosted by Rival Technologies, community voting, the Squatchies, the Year Two reveal, and the AI Film Festival closing party.

Built from the community already showing up

Futureproof is presented by BC + AI and grows out of the rooms already forming around AI in British Columbia: Vancouver AI Meetups, film nights, hackathon stages, ethics conversations, creative experiments, and people who keep showing up before the answers are tidy.

We started this thing in a room full of people trying to figure out what the hell was going on with AI. Artists, coders, founders, teachers, researchers, skeptics, people who were excited, people who were worried, people who were both.

Mostly both.

This did not appear overnight. It is an extension of a thriving creative technology community already gathering, questioning, building, teaching, experimenting, and debating together in public.

Partners already in the room

Presented by BC + AI.

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

Ethos Lab

Friends Quarters

Sons of Vancouver

SFU Metacreation Lab

CreativeMornings Vancouver

Data for Good Vancouver

Rival Technologies

BC + AI membership

BC + AI membership supports the community infrastructure around the festival: in-person events, scholarship seats, documentation, and the work that keeps people connected after the ticket lands.

Active BC + AI members save 25% on Futureproof Festival passes.

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

Kris Krüg is the Festival Director and Founder/Executive Director of BC + AI. He runs the Vancouver AI Meetups and has been building Futureproof Festival from the physical community first.

Featured speakers

The lineup so far. More names announced soon.

Amber Case, Founder, Calm Tech Institute

https://futureproof.website/speakers/amber-case/

Ana Serrano, President & Vice-Chancellor, OCAD University

https://futureproof.website/speakers/ana-serrano/

Lynda Brown-Ganzert, CEO, RxPx

https://futureproof.website/speakers/lynda-brown-ganzert/

Zaro, Community Intelligence Architect

https://futureproof.website/speakers/gabe-zaro/

Kris Krüg, Festival Director & Founder, BC + AI

https://futureproof.website/speakers/kris-krug/