DRAFT — March 16, 2026 | Author: Kris Krüg, Executive Director, BC + AI Ecosystem Association | Type: Event Dispatch | Tags: banff-summit, ai-culture, federal-strategy, bc-ai, indigenous-ai, creator-economy

There's a mountain outside my window that the Stoney Nakoda call Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain. The Banff Centre sits on its flank, Treaty 7 territory, and for the next two days, 233 people from 160-plus organizations are going to try to figure out what AI means for Canadian culture.

I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time.

—— OPENING NIGHT: THUNDER IS A LOVING SOUND ——

The summit opened not with a minister or a CEO but with Shani Gwin, founder of Pipikwan Pêhtâkwan, presenting Wasgun — an Indigenous-led AI tool built to do something I've never heard an AI tool described as doing: protect Indigenous people online while educating everyone else about how to talk and work with them appropriately.

Here's what Wasgun does: it functions as a browser plugin and document assistant that identifies misinformation, bias, and racism directed at Indigenous people. For Indigenous users, it blurs harmful content so you can safely browse the internet without reading terrible things about yourself or your family. For everyone else, it's what Shani calls "a really good intern" — underlining problems in your writing, suggesting corrections, pointing you back to community when the answer isn't something AI should be providing.

The name came through ceremony. Elder Theresa Strawberry — who didn't know what the company did at the time — gave them a name that translates to "kind electricity" or "kind energy." The teaching: traditionally, thunder was a loving sound for Indigenous people. It meant rain was coming. Sustenance. Cleansing. But newcomers to these lands get scared of the thunder. "We have to teach them not to be scared," Elder Theresa said. "It's a loving sound. It's a loving energy."

Shani took that and ran: "A lot of people are scared of AI and it can be a kind tool, a kind and loving tool if we build it with those values and that intention and we take our time."

Wasgun partnered with Amii — Alberta's national AI institute — and here's the part that stuck with me: Amii's team, including CEO Cam Linke, has come to ceremony with Wasgun's elders. Not a photo op. Not a one-time land acknowledgment. They go regularly to make sure they're on the right track, that they have approval to keep going. I've seen a lot of "Indigenous partnerships" in tech. This is the first one I've encountered where the AI institute shows up for ceremony.

Then Shani went somewhere I didn't expect. She started talking about matriarchal AI.

“They're saying this is becoming sentient and it's blackmailing people. I thought, okay, it's a patriarchal, hierarchical white tool. What would we need to combat that? An anti-AI. One that's gonna whack that other AI at the back of the head and say, settle down.” — Shani Gwin

If you ask OpenAI for an organizational chart, you get a pyramid. Wasgun might give you a flower — Pipikwan Pêhtâkwan's actual org model, where each person is their own flower, connected but autonomous, with leadership that exists to make sure everyone else succeeds. Matriarchal AI would provide different knowledge systems as equals, not rank colonial knowledge as the default right answer.

“What if we moved slow like a sloth and we thought of seven generations forward and backward? What if we made our decisions based on impact? Let's not move fast and break the earth.” — Shani Gwin

And then, the line that I think defines this entire summit: "Success is not an individual endeavor. There's room for everyone."

At BC + AI, we opened our first community event with a Squamish ceremony. We have Carol Anne Hilton — CEO of the Indigenomics Institute — on our board with full governance authority. We believe in ceremony-grounded, relationship-first development. Hearing Shani articulate the same values, from a completely different nation and a completely different project, at a federal summit — that felt like confirmation that this approach isn't niche. It's the future.

—— BREAKFAST: WHERE THE SUMMIT ACTUALLY HAPPENS ——

If you've been to enough conferences, you know: the real summit happens at breakfast. The panels are for the record. The meals are for the relationships.

I showed up to the Vista dining room in what I'm calling the Canada tuxedo — full denim, because if you're meeting with Canada's culture leaders, you commit to the bit — and sat down at a table with three YouTube creators and a guy from Alberta who makes Excel tutorials.

That's not a joke. Jamie Keet runs Teacher's Tech, a YouTube channel with 1.1 million subscribers. His big break? A Microsoft Excel tutorial. Then COVID hit and everyone in the world suddenly needed to learn how to make a Zoom call, and Jamie became everyone's unofficial IT support. Ten years of consistency, one or two videos a week, twins at home — and now he's at a national AI summit alongside the head of the Canada Media Fund and a federal minister.

Next to Jamie: Sabrina Cruz, creative director and host of Answer in Progress, an educational YouTube channel with 1.6 million subscribers. They ask questions like "Can you teach an AI ethics?" and "Why is gray so popular in interior design?" and document the journey to the answer. "It's all about modeling intellectual humility and scientific process," Sabrina told me. I said it sounded pretty heady for something that's actually popular. She took it as a compliment.