Facilitated by Aaron Hawkins, Inspiring Communities Director and presented by Joshua Vial and Lani Evans, this session will provide a fast, fun overview of AI for the community sector.

Over an hour we'll walk through:

Demystifying AI - what is it, its capabilities and limitations
The challenges of AI ethics
Frameworks for good governance
Time to answer your burning questions

Joshua Vial is an entrepreneur, programmer and educator with a passion for business, technology and social change. Since 2023 he has been leading a small team of consultants building AI applications and delivering education programmes at Code With JV. He is particularly focused on the impact of AI in software development and education, and publishes a weekly newsletter on the topic. The most recent venture Joshua co-founded is Fundsorter which helps charities find and manage funding opportunities but he has a long history of starting (and staying involved with) companies. He studied computer science in the late 90s and has been working as professional software developer ever since. He has been a shareholder and director of Made Curious since 2004 and launched Enspiral in 2010. In 2013 he co-founded Dev Academy and spent a decade training junior developers before embarking on the current chapter.

Lani Evans is a for-purpose founder and leader focused on moving resources more equitably. She started her career running charities and has spent the last ten years leading and governing in philanthropy and business. She is a serial social entrepreneur, with ventures focused on the intersection of technology, philanthropy and social change, co-founding Share Collective, Generous Ventures and most recently, Fundsorter. Lani was the inaugural CEO of Thankyou Payroll, a steward owned company. Lani is an honorary member of Philanthropy NZ and was awarded a New Year’s Honour for services to social enterprise. She lives in an intergenerational, multi-whānau household in Porirua and is proud māmā to Bryn and Ara.