Responsible AI Professional Certification: 8/7

Every organization is deploying AI. Most are doing it without governance frameworks, without ethics training, and without asking the hard questions early enough.

What Participants Say

What's included in this course?

Four live online sessions:

August 7, 14, 21 3pm-4:30pm

August 28th 3pm-6pm

Weekly practical exercises

Four portfolio artifacts: AI Inventory, Ethics Assessment, Deployment Checklist, Impact Assessment

A practical grounding in UNESCO, OECD, NIST, IEEE, and other responsible-AI frameworks

A cohort of professionals wrestling with the same deployment, governance, and trust questions

RAP certification recognized by BC + AI Ecosystem

The syllabus & curriculum.

Week 1: Foundations: Understanding AI and Its Limits

How AI systems actually work (demystifying the technology)

The confidence-accuracy gap: Why AI sounds right when it's wrong

Hallucinations and confabulation: When inaccuracy is annoying vs. dangerous

Global ethics frameworks: UNESCO, OECD, NIST, IEEE

Week 2: Core Ethics - Bias, Privacy, and Ownership

Bias & Prediction: Identify algorithmic bias, understand fairness definitions

Privacy: Data collection, consent, surveillance economy

Copyright & Creative Work: Who owns AI inputs and outputs?

Week 3: Societal Impact - Deployment, Labor, and Environment

Deployment Ethics: When is AI ready? When should it never be used?

Labor & Work: Displacement, augmentation, worker surveillance

Environmental Impact: The carbon cost of computation

Week 4: The Human Element: Authenticity, Relationships, and

Meaning

Authenticity: Deepfakes, synthetic media, trust erosion

Social Life: Human-AI relationships, parasocial dynamics, vulnerable populations

The Human Spirit: Creativity, agency, meaning in an AI age

Who is this for?

Executives and leaders overseeing AI initiatives

Consultants and advisors building responsible-AI services

Professionals who budget for their own development

Product, operations, HR, nonprofit, public-sector, and creative leaders

Anyone who needs to assess AI risks before deployment

No technical AI experience required. If you're making decisions about AI - budgeting, deploying, governing, communicating, or evaluating - you're qualified.

Meet your instructors.

Sarah Downey: Instructor - AI consultant and strategist based in Victoria with 20+ years in nonprofit and social impact leadership. Hosts facilitated conversations for nonprofit leaders on ethical AI governance. Course creator focused on helping mission-driven organizations adopt AI responsibly with her ethos: Stay Curious. Stay Connected. Stay Human. Brings nonprofit sector expertise, facilitation skills, and values-centered approach to AI governance. BC + AI Founding Member #138.

Martin Lopatka: Curriculum Developer - PhD in Forensic Statistics, M.Sc. in AI. Mozilla alumni with production ML systems experience. Expertise in responsible AI assessment frameworks, model governance, regulatory alignment. Voluntary contribution to curriculum design. BC + AI Founding Member #31.

Kris Krug: Program Lead - Kris Krüg is a digital strategist and community builder specializing in the intersection of artificial intelligence, creativity, and technology. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kris leads AI-focused initiatives that bridge technical innovation with practical applications across various industries.

Responsible AI Capstone Projects

The first RAP cohort 20 AI professionals produced working responsible-AI governance tools: policies, risk matrices, intake systems, AI-use gates, workforce assessments, and sector-specific governance kits.

Kerris Hougardy: AI Skill-Displacement Risk & Reskilling Navigator: Watch the capstone walkthrough

Brittney Ashley: Using AI With Intention - a People-First AI Policy: Watch the capstone walkthrough

Bruce Ratzlaff: Industrial Sales-Prioritization Governance Matrix: Watch the capstone walkthrough

The Movement: BC + AI Ecosystem Association

This meetup is part of BC + AI a member-driven nonprofit where meetups turn into working groups, prototypes turn into shared tools, and community values turn into governance.

We are building the public-interest infrastructure for AI in British Columbia ensuring that our local-first intelligence outlives its creators and powers the next era of West Coast innovation.

Vancouver AI was just the start. The ecosystem keeps growing across BC... Surrey, Victoria, Comox, Kelowna, and beyond... each node bringing its own culture, needs, and experiments.