Hey AI LA Community,
Between our 9th Annual Responsible AI Symposium, the upcoming Life Summit, and a full calendar of meetups across the city, it's been a big year for AI LA—big enough that we've grown the team to match. Meet the two newest additions to our team, then dive into everything on deck: a call for summit speakers and volunteers, corporate partnership opportunities, a robotics hackathon with Qualcomm, a new member spotlight series, and more.
Welcome AI LA Team Members
Jessica Suh is an operations and project management professional with a background spanning government and education. Her experience includes leadership roles in the U.S. House of Representatives with the Committee on Rules and as an educator in South Korea, where she developed expertise in strategic coordination, communications, and organizational management. As Director of Special Projects with AI LA, Jessica brings a thoughtful, collaborative approach to supporting teams, managing complex initiatives, and improving organizational effectiveness.
Sarah Barbod leads AI LA's marketing and communications program. She brings more than 10 years of marketing experience across the aerospace, defense, advanced manufacturing, and software-as-a-service industries. She specializes in building content and demand generation campaigns that build brand awareness and engagement. At AI LA, Sarah will work to grow our community, amplify diverse voices, and make conversations about AI more accessible, engaging, and human.
Partner With AI LA This Fall
AI LA is currently building programming for two of our biggest ecosystem events of the year: the Life Summit on September 26th and the a16z LA Tech Week, October 12–18.
We’re inviting companies to join us through event sponsorships, strategic partnerships, thought-leadership opportunities and branded activations designed to engage AI LA’s 30K-member community of founders, operators, investors, researchers, technical leaders, and corporate innovators.
Whether your goals include building brand awareness, connecting with customers, showcasing your technology, recruiting talent or strengthening your position within Southern California’s AI ecosystem, we’d like to explore how your company can participate across one—or both—of these programs.
Contact AI LA Head of Partnerships, Sarah Katyal, at [email protected] to discuss upcoming opportunities.
Life Summit: Call for Speakers, Session Topics, and Volunteers
We are thrilled to host our annual Life Summit on September 26th, bringing together academia and industry to showcase the latest advances in exponential technologies, discuss healthcare’s most pressing issues, and empower a new generation of data-driven startups transforming the healthcare industry to improve patient outcomes.
Participate in the 2026 Life Summit
Call for Speakers
We are seeking passionate, knowledgeable panelists and innovative startups to join the conversation. Are you an expert on AI's impact on the healthcare workforce? We want to hear from you.
Volunteer
We’re assembling a dedicated volunteer team to help bring this experience to life. Volunteers will play a critical role in ensuring smooth operations, from welcoming guests and supporting speakers to managing logistics and production.
Interested in shaping the Life Summit event? Fill out the form below.
Topic Submission
Curious about AI’s impact on healthcare? Or the ethics and policy around AI in accelerating drug discovery or streamlining hospital tasks? If there is a specific healthcare topic you would like us to cover during the summit, email your ideas to [email protected].
Upcoming Partner Events
AI LA + Qualcomm
On August 14th, AI LA and Qualcomm are teaming up for the Robot Soccer Cup Hack Day—a one-day AI and robotics hackathon where teams will program AI-powered robots, train them to identify and strike the ball, and put their creations to the test in a live, one-on-one soccer tournament.
Participants will get the opportunity to build with Qualcomm-powered hardware, explore computer vision and edge AI, connect with fellow developers and technologists, and compete for prizes, swag, and the Robot Soccer Cup trophy.
Want to compete? Spots are limited to 32 teams. Fill out the interest form to claim your seat.
Want to watch the action? General admission and AI LA+ member tickets are live on Luma.
AI LA + Data Con LA
We are proud partners of this year’s Data Con LA in Long Beach on August 22, 2026.
Our Executive Director, Heather Sit, will be a featured speaker on the Women in Data & AI panel with practicioners across analytics, engineering, and AI to share the paths they took, the obstacles they navigated, and how we build a stronger, more representative data community.
Special Offer: DPP & UTA Present “Production Now”
The Digital Production Partnership is collaborating with the United Talent Agency to host Production Now in Los Angeles on August 13th. Held at UTA’s Beverly Hills headquarters, the event explores the evolving economics of entertainment with speakers from YouTube, Tubi, NBCUniversal, and FOX Entertainment Studios.
DPP and UTA are offering our AI LA community an exclusive discount code: PRODUCTIONNOW25.
Click the link below for full details and registration:
Free AI LA Mixers and Events:
StartOut x AI LA Happy Hour
Thursday, July 30, 6–9 pm | GYM Bar WeHo
Join StartOut and AI LA for an intimate evening of connection, conversation, and cocktails at everyone's favorite WeHo spot—GYM Bar. Whether you're building in AI, curious about the space, or just looking to meet your next collaborator, this is a low-key, high-value mixer for the queer tech and AI community in LA.
Come for the drinks, stay for the people.
AI Policy Meetup
Wednesday, August 5, 6-8pm | Highland Park Brewery
Join us for our monthly AI Policy Meetup in Chinatown! This event brings together professionals and enthusiasts from AI, policy, and technology to exchange ideas and explore emerging trends. Whether you’re a policymaker, technologist, researcher, or simply curious about the future of AI, all are welcome to join the conversation.
AI in the Valley Meetup
Wednesday, August 12, 5-7pm | Idle Hour
AI LA and Machine Cinema team up for the next AI in the Valley Happy Hour. It's entertainment focused but you don't have to be in entertainment...or technical, or working on anything to belong here. Curious is enough. Come grab a drink and talk to people figuring it out in real time.
Aerospace Meetup
Thursday, August 13, 6–8 pm | Rock & Brews, El Segundo
Calling all aerospace professionals, space dreamers, and anyone fascinated by flight. Join us at Rock & Brews in El Segundo for a relaxed evening of lively conversation about everything that soars—within Earth’s atmosphere and far beyond.
Whether you’re designing the next aircraft or captivated by deep-space exploration, this meetup is for you.
Member Spotlight: Meet Gigi
Gigi Johnson started attending AI LA events back in 2019 when the Moonshots panel series sparked a wave of new ideas for her. At the time, she was running the UCLA Center for Music Innovation, working at the intersection of AI and music with voice transcription tools while producing the Innovating Music podcast.
Gigi’s vast background includes 10 years in media finance at Bank of America, followed by 23 years teaching and running programs on digital disruption at UCLA. When she "retired" from UCLA in 2021, retirement didn't really stick. Instead, ideas and connections from AI LA helped inspire her next chapter: an AI-first futures think tank (Rethink Next), a boutique media studio (Maremel Studio), and an AI Career Navigation Program.
That same curiosity keeps pulling her back to AI LA events, she says: “Individual AI LA events I came to helped me learn about anything from local LLM use to working in n8n. More recently, I've been meeting many new members who have been building AI-first companies in all sorts of diverse fields. I've been able to go to events on anything from AI in the military to AI in aerospace and learn things again I knew little about.”
Ready to find your own community at AI LA? Members like Gigi get full access to a year of events, workshops, and networking—plus the chance to help shape where AI LA goes next.
