The following community-organized socials are taking place alongside the FAccT 2026 conference program. Events are listed in chronological order. Contact the organizer listed for each event with any questions.
Hosted by the Compliant & Accountable Systems Group, part of the Research Centre for Trustworthy AI (RC-Trust), this networking reception brings together researchers and practitioners from across the FAccT community. Join us to continue the day's conversations, meet new colleagues, and connect with others from across the many disciplines that shape FAccT over drinks and light refreshments. Open to all FAccT attendees, though capacity is limited.
Date: Thursday, June 25, 2026
Time: 6:00 – 8:30 PM
Location: Sir Winston Churchill Pub, 1455 Rue Crescent, Montréal
Registration (required): http://www.compacctsys.net/facct-event
Contact: Emma Kallina — emma.kallina@uni-due.de
The annual Queer in AI Social is open to all LGBTQ+ attendees and allies. Come connect with community over drinks in a relaxed setting.
Date: Thursday, June 25, 2026
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 PM
Location: Co-op Bar Milton-Parc
Registration: (Required — All fields optional except agreeing to the code of conduct): https://forms.gle/2YuXPCSpREopaQmAA
Contact: Jordan Taylor — jordant@andrew.cmu.edu
A casual, discussion-based gathering exploring questions of authority, accountability, and institutional design in AI-mediated information systems. Open to researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-interested attendees.
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Time: Lunch (noon)
Location: TBD
Registration: https://forms.gle/QKpkoDs5HrdTGrNk8
Contact: Dorsaf Sallami — dorsaf.sallami@mila.quebec
Connect with the EvalEval Coalition — a cross-sector research community from Hugging Face, University of Edinburgh, and EleutherAI — working to address flawed AI evaluations through research, infrastructure, and community.
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Time: 5.45pm - open-ended (we walk there together from the FAccT venue after the EvalEval tutorial)
Location: 3 Brasseurs - 1356 Sainte-Catherine St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1P6
Registration: https://luma.com/yre6lgbs
Contact: Jan Batzner — evalevalpc@googlegroups.com
An informal gathering hosted by the Stanford Critical AI Working Group to foster interdisciplinary dialogue across attendees from academia, activist, civil society, and tech sector backgrounds around Critical AI scholarship and movement building.
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Location: Poincaré Chinatown, 1071 Boulevard Saint-Laurent 2nd Floor.
Registration: https://luma.com/criticalai
Contact: Sacha Alanoca — sachaa@stanford.edu
A virtual social bridging the FAccT and Information Retrieval communities for critical dialogue on realizing information access as a force for justice, emancipation, and democracy. All disciplines and practices are welcome.
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Location: Zoom — Please register: https://jedi.inertial.science/facct2026/
Contact: Bhaskar Mitra — bhaskar.mitra@acm.org
A meet-up for FAccT attendees researching AI's impact on people's wellbeing, including mental health and companion systems. Come connect across empirical research, policy, and safety evaluation perspectives.
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Time: 6:30 – 8:00 PM
RSVP: https://forms.gle/m4dAWCkDzEyk8iyY8
Location: Society for Arts and Science Rooftop Terrace
Contact: Ningjing Tang — ningjint@andrew.cmu.edu
A hands-on crafting session (Legos, Play-Doh, pipe cleaners, and markers) where attendees build and share their mental models of AI, followed by open discussion and networking. No prior AI knowledge required.
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026
Time: 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Location: Time Out Market, Montréal
Contact: Shira Michel — michel.sh@northeastern.edu
An informal gathering for researchers, practitioners, students, and organizers committed to resisting violent and authoritarian forms of AI. Welcomes abolitionist, peace-centered, anti-militarist, and democratic approaches to technology.
Date: Saturday, 27 June, 2026
Time: Lunch
Location: MONO, 1444 Sainte-Catherine St. West, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1R3, Canada
Contact: Noa Garcia, David Gray Widder, Alex Hanna
An informal networking gathering for AI researchers, EdTech practitioners, and learning scientists focused on fair, accountable, and transparent educational technologies. Features low-stakes idea boards — no formal presentations.
Date: Saturday, June 27, 2026
Time: 12:30 at Les enfants terribles. I'll be at the Sheraton lobby at 12:15 and we can walk together from there.
Location: Les enfants terribles
Registration: https://luma.com/fk7lr6y6
Contact: Alejandra Ruiz-Segura — alejandra.ruiz-segura@hec.ca
Connect with the Political Economy and Algorithms Collective, a cross-institutional network of researchers and activists, to eat food, meet comrades, and contemplate class struggle and the material conditions of computing.
Date: Saturday, June 27, 2026
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Location: Co-op Bar Milton-Parc
Contact: Justine Zhang — tisjune@umich.edu
Join Concordia's Milieux Institute to celebrate the launch of SimPolitics by Fenwick McKelvey and learn about Abundant Intelligences, an Indigenous-led AI research program. Enjoy a rooftop terrace gathering with drinks and conversation.
Date: Saturday, June 27, 2026
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Location: Milieux Institute Terrace, 11th Floor EV Building, 1515 Sainte-Catherine St. W (Guy-Concordia Metro)
Registration:https://www.zeffy.com/en-CA/ticketing/facct-milieux
Contact: Fenwick McKelvey — fenwick.mckelvey@concordia.ca
An informal bilingual (EN/FR) evening putting FAccT's sociotechnical work in conversation with the broader AI safety community. Light food and drinks, open to FAccT attendees and Montréal's AI safety community.
Date: Saturday, June 27, 2026
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 PM
Location: Ω Labs, 3813 Saint-Denis, Montréal
Registration:https://luma.com/x9344yi2
Contact: Orpheus Lummis — o@horizonomega.org