Vancouver AI Meetup #25 — January 28, 2026

"Both Hands Full": 250+ attendees explored AI relationships, human-centered design, and soft violence in AI discourse. Featuring Alexandra Samuel (Me + Viv), Maya Bruck (vibe coding UX), Erica Lapadat-Janzen (data-driven ethics), and Anthony Joseph (Squamish Nation ceremony).

</aside>

Summary

250 people packed the Space Centre for Meetup #25, and we held contradictions in both hands all night. Anthony Joseph opened us up with a Bear song and teaching about Chen Qua (holding each other up), which set the tone for what followed: Maya Bruck showed vibe coders how to keep humans at the center of their 209-iteration Figma prototypes, Erica Lapadat-Janzen coded 850+ replies to her AI art post and proved that "ethics discourse" is often just punishment dressed up as morality, and Alexandra Samuel spent two hours teaching us how her custom AI assistant Viv unlocked creativity and vulnerability she didn't know she had — while her husband Rob testified that AI made him love her twice as much. This is what "both hands full" looks like: optimism and transformation in one hand, critical thinking and "what the fuck" in the other, walking forward with both.

Key Themes

Indigenous Grounding: Chen Qua

Anthony Joseph opened the night in ceremony, which is how we always start. As a Squamish Nation counselor, he sang the Bear song — a song about strength, perseverance, and the matriarchs who hold communities together. "Our ladies are our matriarchs," Anthony said. "They're the backbone. Nothing will get done without them." He introduced us to Chen Qua: the Skwxwú7mesh word for supporting one another, holding each other up.

This wasn't performative acknowledgment. Anthony was there because the work we're doing matters, and ceremony creates the container for it. "When I shared that, uh, all those that carried my name before me are here as well," he explained. "Our ancestors are with us." He connected the three women speaking tonight to indigenous ways of being: "In our Skw̲x̲wú7mesh ways, our indigenous ways, not just in the Skwxwú7mesh people, but all the indigenous people in the areas, our ladies are our matriarchs. They're the backbone."

The room held quiet. Big lungs. Then we got to work.

Human-Centered Design in the Vibe Coding Era

Maya Bruck came up to share wisdom from 20 years of product design, now turbocharged by AI. She graduated from The Upgrade a few weeks ago and immediately started blowing minds with her Figma Make workflow — 209 iterations on a single prototype, iterating in real-time during client meetings.

But Maya didn't come to show off tools. She came to make sure vibe coders remember the humans.

Her five principles:

Start with personas — Not generic users. Actual people with names, fears, anxieties. "We gave them all names," Maya said about her restaurant analytics project. "So when I'm showing them a mock up, I'm not asking them, what do you think? I'm saying, does this meet Alex's needs? Is Alex going to get overwhelmed by this information?"
Write user stories — "As a CMO of a multi-location restaurant brand, I have a need to understand whether marketing is driving sales and retention, so that I can justify the spend and allocate budget confidently." The three-part formula: who, need, outcome.
Map user journeys — "She gets to work on Monday morning and the campaign's not doing great. She has a meeting with the CFO in two hours." Context matters. Maybe she doesn't need a dashboard — maybe she needs an email Monday morning that says "here's how your campaign's doing, click for the report."
Test with real people — "Until you have validated that this is working with real human beings, it is only a prototype." She can iterate in real-time now, but she's still putting designs in front of actual users and watching them try to complete tasks. "If they can't do it, it's my fault. It's my thing to fix."
Build for accessibility — Screen readers. Alt tags. Keyboard navigation. "If you're building it for humans, you're building it for all humans."