Hey AI LA Community,

We’re wrapping up March with a whirlwind of events—from GenAI and ComfyUI meetups to our upcoming Responsible AI Hackathon and themed mixers in cybersecurity, healthcare, fintech, and more. If you’re looking to connect, learn, or just explore the latest in AI, you’ll find something that sparks your interest.

Check out the newsletter for all the details, and we hope to see you at one of our upcoming gatherings!

Sincerely,
Team AI LA

Earth Summit Topics/Speakers

We are excited to announce our sixth annual Earth Summit on April 17th. In light of the recent devastating LA fires, this year's event will focus on climate resilience, sustainability, wildfire management, and disaster relief.

We are seeking passionate speakers with expertise in these areas to help shape our discussions and drive meaningful change. If you are ready to share your insights and contribute to this critical dialogue, please let us know.

What we’ve been up to:

GenAI Meetup – Mar. 10th

Yet another successful GenAI Meetup in Pasadena. Thanks to everyone who came out. Missed this one? We’re hosting another one in April.

ComfyUI Meetup – Mar. 6

We kicked off the official LA ComfyUI meetup series, taking place at the AI LA HQ in Venice Beach. Sign up today for our April event!

GenAI Mixer & Workshop w/ Qualcomm – Mar. 1-2

We hosted our first GenAI Mixer and Worksop with Qualcomm on real-world EdgeAI deployments, featuring: Andy Ballester (CPO of EyePop.ai, Founder of GoFundMe), Jeffrey Travis (CEO of Positron), and Nick Debeurre (Sr. ML Engineer, AI Developer Advocate, Qualcomm). Sign up for the April mixer today!

“Can AI Voices Be Trusted? Tackling Hallucination, Transparency & Accountability” – Feb. 27

Hosted in collaboration with Gridspace and AI LA’s Responsible AI Reading Group, our event—“Can AI Voices Be Trusted? Tackling Hallucination, Transparency & Accountability”—explored the critical challenges surrounding AI-generated voices and their growing impact across industries.

Responsible AI Collective Submits Public Comment to the National AI Action Plan

Members of our Responsible AI Collective completed our survey to provide our public comment submission for the RFI on the development of a National AI Action Plan (7555-01-P), and help ensure that the voices of AI founders, researchers, and builders in Los Angeles are well-represented.

The summary of our pubic comment stated that to solidify America’s leadership in AI, the AI Action Plan must promote policies that:

1. Ensure robust AI infrastructure investment to sustain national competitiveness.

2. Provide clear AI governance policies that support responsible innovation.

3. Strengthen AI security and safety to protect against cyber threats.

4. Invest in AI workforce development and public education.

5. Support open AI development while ensuring national security.

These incredible events are made possible thanks to our AI LA+ members, whose support has fueled our growth over the past two months. Want to help shape the future of AI LA while enjoying exclusive perks? Consider joining AI LA+ and growing with us!

We are hosting our first AI LA+ members-only event this Saturday. At this event, all members will get professional headshots taken, and we’ll discuss how we can continue to provide more value as a community.

AI LA’s IDEAS Accelerator applications are now open!

AI LA’s IDEAS is a competitive and transformative program for LA community college students eager to acquire cutting-edge AI skills and explore its applications in diverse fields.

This is a hybrid 10 week long self-paced program for LA County community college students. It is delivered asynchronously through Coursera, focusing on the latest advancements in AI and machine learning. Students will complete courses remotely, attend synchronous virtual study sessions, hear from guest speakers, and culminate their learning with a final hands-on project.

Program Dates: April 28th, 2025 to June 30th, 2025

Requirements: Applicants should be LA County community college students who have intermediate programming knowledge in Python. There is no cost to participants, if selected.

Join us for a virtual info session on April 4th.

Announcing our Responsible AI (Made in LA) Hackathon!

Join us for a Responsible AI Hackathon with Bruin AI and the AI LA Responsible AI Collective! Use AI tools to explore themes like privacy, sustainability, and the future of work.

Whether you are a student, professional, experienced coder or just a beginner, there is something for everyone! With over $6k in prizes and a week of workshops, this is not an opportunity to pass up.

This is a week long hybrid event taking place April 12th through April 19th.

The deadline for registration is: Wed. April 6th

Upcoming Events

LA Founders & Investors: Responsible AI Investing (3/27) – Venice

Today's venture capital landscape has dramatically evolved regarding AI expectations from startups. Investors now demand sophisticated AI adoption strategies that go beyond marketing hype, or “AI Washing,” requiring founders to articulate precisely how AI will further enhance their product or service’s customer retention, reduce churn, and enable teams to do more with less headcount to reduce their burn rate.

According to Y Combinator’s managing partner, Jared Friedman, a quarter of their W25 startups have 95% of their codebases generated by AI. But as TechCrunch points out, “Code generated from AI is far from perfect, though. Studies and reports have observed that some AI-generated code can insert security flaws in applications, cause outages, or make mistakes, forcing devs to change the code or debug heavily.”

We invite you to join us for a special LA Founders & Investors Mixer & Panel Discussion in Venice featuring both the investor and startup/founder viewpoints: Nuzi Barkatally, Silicon Valley Bank; Brandon Goldman, Lion Heart VC, and Claire Wright, CEO and Founder of BUDDY. This intimate mixer and discussion will dive into the shifts for both investors and startups, and provide an opportunity to network with like-minded folks.

Cerebral Beach Café w/ EDNA Coffee (3/22) – Venice

Welcome to Cerebral Beach Café, a morning meetup where coffee fuels ideas and community. Hosted in AI LA's event space in Venice, this gathering is designed for those in tech, AI, and beyond to sip, connect, and get things done.

Cybersecurity Happy Hour (3/25) – Venice

​AI LA is excited to host yet another Cybersecurity Happy Hour in Venice, providing a platform for experts and enthusiasts to connect and discuss the future of digital security.

Responsible AI Reading Group with Albert Ventayol (3/20) – Online

Join us for our next Responsible AI Reading Group session, where we will dive into the challenges of fairness, accountability, and equity in NLP and large language models (LLMs).

Aerospace Meetup (3/26) – 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.

AI x Healthcare Mixer (3/26) – Sawtelle

​​Enjoy an evening of refreshments, engaging activities, and meaningful dialogue that aims to enhance our commitment to equitable health access and outcomes. This event is not just a mixer, but a stepping stone towards a larger conversation at our upcoming summit.

ComfyUI Official AI LA March Meet-Up (4/3) – Venice

Join us for the official ComfyUI Meetup in LA, hosted at AI LA’s HQ in the former Snapchat Office in Venice Beach. ​Connect with fellow enthusiasts and dive deeper into the creators, models, and startups building on top of ComfyUI.

RenderCon (4/15) – Hollywood

The Render Network, the leading decentralized GPU computing platform for 3D rendering, AI, and spatial media, is thrilled to invite the AI LA community to RenderCon – April 15th at Nya Studios in Hollywood. 

The conference will feature leaders in AI, GPU computing, Hollywood, and web3 to explore how art, media, and exa-scale computing are shaping the decade ahead including: 

• Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann , Beeple Studios

• Richard Kerris, VP and GM Media & Entertainment at NVIDIA

• Ariel Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor and TKO

• Emad Mostaque, Founder of Intelligent Internet 

• Rod Roddenberry, Executive Producer of Star Trek (Paramount+)

For free admission to RenderCon, please RSVP with the AI LA invite code below: 

Invite: https://lu.ma/rendercon

Free Coupon Code: AILAGUEST