I recently wrapped up organizing the 2025 Canadian Undergraduate Conference on Artificial Intelligence (CUCAI). We brought together some of the brightest undergraduates from across the country for a weekend of talks and a research showcase.

I met a lot of really cool people. Conferences are a great place to do this because you have common ground. You're far less obligated to small talk when you have shared interests with the people around you. I hate the word "networking", but doing it at a conference is far more satisfying than on LinkedIn, where everyone's trying to network. Vibes are important.

I structured the team to be very lean, with 10 people in total. Giving everyone ownership over their work seems to make organizations efficient. Plus, it's way more fun to organize something with a group of friends than to try and steer a bloated team where people slip through the cracks.

People seemed to like this year's conference. We had a 98% satisfaction rate from a post-event poll. And judging by the number of LinkedIn posts, people liked it enough to share it with others.

CUCAI is at an interesting point in its life. It was established in 2019, prior to the "AI boom", as a way to platform passionate undergrads in AI. I think that in the latter half of the decade, geeking out about AI will trend towards the "cringeworthy" direction, especially as its public-facing impact is no longer restricted to academia or niche industry applications. But research remains important, and I hope that the conference can continue to foster young academic talent. I'm confident that I've left it in good hands.

Bringing people together is incredibly rewarding, and creating spaces where people can connect authentically can have a lot of impact. Gather good people around meaningful work, keep the structure simple, and let the magic happen.

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