Calgary Innovation Week 2026 — HQ Submission

Ship It Safely: Build & Launch a Real AI App in 90 Minutes

A hands-on build lab that opens with a jaw-dropper: in front of the room, we build and deploy a real, AI-powered app to the global edge — live, in minutes — an unmistakable showcase of what serious engineering looks like in 2026. Then the room builds their own: a real "idea validator" app — an AI-generated landing page that captures real email signups to a database, deployed to a live URL. Everyone at Innovation Week has an idea to test; this ships it. Then we do the part every "build with AI" session skips. AI didn't just write you a working app — it quietly wrote you real security holes. We find them together and close them, live, with the depth that separates a demo from something a real engineer would ship. No coding experience required; a browser is all you bring. Objectives: (1) build and deploy a real AI app, hands-on; (2) learn to spot the handful of security mistakes AI silently introduces — the ones that actually bite — and fix them; (3) leave with a reusable "ship-it-safely" checklist, the judgment layer AI can't supply on its own. Target audience: tech-curious Calgarians, career-changers, and founders without a technical co-founder — anyone who wants to build, and to build without getting burned. We facilitate the whole way: you build, we unblock, and you leave with a live app you can safely show the world that night.

Two things, both usable that day: (1) a live, working AI app they built themselves — a real, publishable URL that collects real signups, not a mockup; and (2) a plain-language "ship-it-safely" checklist they can apply to anything they build with AI from now on. The app is shippable immediately. The security checklist is the part that keeps a founder's first launch — or a career-changer's portfolio project — from leaking its users' data the week it goes live. They leave able to build, and able to not get burned doing it.

Two barriers usually keep new voices out of building: you supposedly need a CS degree to write code, and you need a specialist to make it secure. This session removes both. It's designed first for non-coders, career-changers, and solo founders without technical partners — and it hands them the security judgment normally gate-kept to professionals. My own path is non-traditional (military signals operator → cloud engineer → AI), and I facilitate for the room that's never written a line of code, not the room that already has. The result: people who were only ever allowed to watch leave able to build — and to build responsibly.

Two ways. First, the format: it opens with a live engineering showcase — a real AI app built and deployed to the global edge in minutes, in front of the room — then hands the tools to the audience so they build their own. No slides, no panel. Second, the idea: AI will happily write you working software AND real security holes in the same breath, and almost nobody is teaching the second half. Every other "build with AI" session stops at the demo; we keep going. We let AI write a real vulnerability, spot it as a room, and close it together. The audience doesn't watch someone build — they build, they break, they fix, and they leave with the receipt (a live app) and the judgment to keep it safe.

Low. No prior technical or security knowledge assumed. Every term — including the security concepts — is explained in plain language the moment it comes up, backed by a one-page cheat sheet, and we circulate to unblock anyone who gets stuck so no one is left behind. If you can use a web browser, you can complete this session.

Tech Curious Calgarians AND Founders (Tech Professionals also welcome).