Hey friends! 👋

Here's the latest in the AI LA Community:

• Register today for Cerebral Beach Hacks 2024 – Los Angeles’ largest hackathon kicking off LA Tech Week.

• LA Founders & Investors is back! Join us on 9/18 in Culver City for a fireside chat with a local founder & investor– complete with tacos and refreshments.

• NEW LOCATION: Our AI Policy Happy Hour returns on 9/5 and will take place at All Season Brewing.

• The community-favorite LA GenAI Happy Hour returns to Pasadena on 9/9

• Community college students: Apply to our IDEAS Cohort 3 by September 2nd 11:59pm! Don’t miss our second IDEAS Cohort 3 ML Track Info Session on Friday 8/30 for students looking to learn more about AI!

Cerebral Beach Hacks 2024 (LA’s Largest Hackathon) – LA Tech Week

AI LA’s new initiative, Cerebral Beach, is redefining the grind. Forget the outdated hustle culture; we're all about pushing limits while staying grounded. At Cerebral Beach, we fuse the energy of LA’s relentless innovation scene with a commitment to balance and well-being. It’s not just about working hard—it's about working smarter and living well…

Introducing Cerebral Beach Hacks, where ambition meets adrenaline 😈

We are kicking off LA Tech Week with LA’s largest in-person Gen AI hackathon, where you’ll have 24 hours to transform an idea into a startup-worthy proof of concept.

With over $100k in prizes up for grabs and the chance to go skydiving with one of the world’s most elite aerial teams, the stakes have never been higher!

We’ve got almost every LA investor on board and sponsors like Kindo AI, Twelve Labs, Dell, NVIDIA, Google, and Vast AI to make this the most impactful and possibly a Guinness World Record for in-person Gen AI Hackathons. Yep, we are trying to beat Google’s record from July in the UK.

Register now, assemble your team, and let’s kick off LA Tech Week in true LA style. Let’s get after it and build the next unicorn startup! 

AI on the Lot is going international!

The world's largest AI Filmmaking conference based in LA is going to Toronto! 🇨🇦 

We will host a special popup at Toronto International Film Festival on September 8th for industry delegates.

During our session, directors of the first-ever films created using OpenAI's Sora models will discuss how filmmakers experiment with generative AI in their work. The session will begin with screenings of AI-generated short films, the world premiere of Cinema Synthetica documentary, and a demonstration of AI-enabled immersive storytelling within The Crow.

Read more on Variety and reply back if you will be in Toronto, so we can meetup!

A Founders & Investors Mixer – 9/18 (Culver City)

​LA Founders & Investors is back! Join AI LA and Emerging LA at Techstars Culver City for a fireside chat with a soon-to-be-announced serial entrepreneur.

Early bird ticket sales end September 14th at 11:59pm PT.

​Tacos, drinks and refreshments are included in the ticket price.

Join our Responsible AI Reading Group

Whether you’re working in AI or just curious about where AI is headed and its impact, we welcome you to join our weekly RAI reading group where we discuss research papers focused on Responsible AI frameworks, challenges, and solutions. Last week the lead of CVS Health’s Third-Party AI Governance and of our RAI reading group, Paul-Marie Carfantan, led a discussion on the governance of AI systems with autonomy (AI Agents), reviewing frameworks and best practices to ensure accountability, transparency, and ethical oversight. 

This week, Juliana Montano will present how the AI LA community can contribute to NIST's public draft on Managing Misuse Risk for Dual-Use Foundational Models. The document provides crucial voluntary best practices to mitigate potential harms from powerful AI systems, address challenges in anticipating misuse, managing model theft risks, and ensuring transparency throughout the AI lifecycle. Juliana sees this as an opportunity to “leverage the diversity of thought and experience we have within this group and contribute to more policymaking processes in the future.”

Our virtual reading sessions take place every Thursday from 4:30pm to 5:15pm PT. We have an active Discord community where we post the upcoming meetings & takeaways, jobs, and related RAI news. To be a part of this growing and active RAI Reading Group click here!

AI Policy Happy Hour – 9/5 (Miracle Mile)

NEW LOCATION: Join us for an AI Policy happy hour at All Season Brewing! This unique event brings together curious minds in artificial intelligence, policy-making, and tech innovation to exchange ideas and insights.

LA GenAI Meetup – 9/9 (Pasadena)

​Join us for a casual evening AI meetup in the heart of Pasadena! This friendly get-together is the perfect opportunity for GenAI enthusiasts, hobbyists, experts, and newcomers alike to connect, share insights, and learn from each other in an informal setting.

Life Summit Call for Speakers

Are you passionate about Healthcare, Artificial Intelligence, and Health Equity? We want you to share your passions at the 6th annual AI LA Life Summit during LA Tech Week.

AI LA’s Life Summit is a one-day event designed to convene 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.

If you are an expert in the industry, a researcher, or just inspired to share your experiences, we want to hear from you. Topics of interest include but are not limited to personalized medicine, value-based care, data ownership and integrity, and drug development and discovery.

Please submit your proposal here: https://go.joinai.la/ls24-speaker

If selected, an AI LA Health & Equity committee member will contact you about the next steps.

Submissions are open until August 30th, 2024

IDEAS Cohort 3 Info Session #2 – Community College Students – 8/30(Remote)

Join us for an Information Session on the AI LA IDEAS Cohort 3 Machine Learning Track, designed specifically for community college students, in partnership with LARC.

​This session will offer an in-depth overview of our 3-month hybrid program, detailing the curriculum, which includes comprehensive coursework on AI for Good and Machine Learning specializations via Coursera, culminating in a final hands-on project.

​Learn how you can gain cutting-edge AI skills, participate in a hands-on project, and receive mentorship from industry professionals.

​This is your opportunity to ask questions, learn more about the application process, and discover how this program can accelerate your career in AI and machine learning.

​Don’t miss out on this chance to take the next step in your AI journey!

​Apply for IDEAS Cohort 3 (ML Track) by September 2nd at https://go.joinai.la/ideas-cc