Demo Days · Summary of May 8 planning call

What we
mapped on May 8.

Five members of the CIBC team met on May 8, 2026 to plan the next phase of demo days. This is a summary of what we discussed: the one event we agreed on, how each of us is thinking about how the sessions should evolve, and what's still open.

In the call
Megan · Artem · Brayden · Chris · Momcilo
Duration
~67 minutes · 4:30 PM through 5:37 PM
Standing call
Every Friday · 1 hour · until the first demo day
Internal · CIBC team Drafted 2026-05-08 Source · May 8 planning call
01 · The one event we agreed on

Demo Day Zero

This is the only demo day with a target date and a concrete shape. Brayden suggested "a month out." Megan agreed: "let's give ourselves a month." Artem named the multi-timezone window of 4 PM to 8 PM Europe time.

Day Zero Target · Week of mid-June 2026 · ~one month out

First demo, mostly for ourselves and our peers.

Five projects present in a two-hour Zoom session. Format is 10 minutes per demo plus 5 minutes of structured Q&A. Q&A is collected in writing during demos and read out at the end of each, per Momcilo's suggestion to avoid the live-Q&A clunkiness. Recording, AI notes via Fireflies, live chat capture for synthesis.

Audience
Builders and technical peers from the plurality network. Newspeak House, regen os, and similar communities to be invited as expert participants.
Likely demos
Megan's project, Artem's Book Power, Momcilo's project, possibly Simone, possibly DDS-related. Final list to be locked within ~two weeks.
Format
5 demos × 15 minutes (10 demo + 5 Q&A) + intro and wrap-up = ~2 hours. Q&A collected in writing and facilitated at the end of each demo.
Recording
Zoom recording, Fireflies AI notes, live chat captured for synthesis.
Funnel
CIBC Substack subscribe (Substack to be stood up). Per-builder calls-to-action in the recap post. CIBC Open Collective project page as secondary CTA.
Time window
4:00 PM to 8:00 PM Europe time (the multi-timezone overlap with Texas).

To ship the first demo day

Participant intake survey via Harmonica. Multiple-choice on which tools they want to see, which categories they fit, opt-in for matchmaking. Megan drafts this week, posts for sanity check, blasts to community early next week.Megan
Final presenter list locked. Within two weeks. Open call versus curated from existing builders is an open question.Team
Luma event page. Tentative date, copy from this transcript, publish for promotion.Artem
Event branding. Cover image, visual identity for the series.Megan
Presenter Prep working group. Megan's Pitch lens via Local Brain (point at a repo or vault folder, get a starter deck) and Momcilo's Canva-based production help. Office-hours model. Open to other contributors.Megan + Momcilo
CIBC Substack stood up. Required before the first demo day so the recap has a home and the subscribe CTA is real.Megan
Live chat synthesis stack. Mentimeter or Slido, or Claude desktop watching the Zoom chat. Test before event.Megan
Expert outreach. Newspeak House owner and current fellows, plurality network. Independent of presenter lock; can start now.Artem
Network seeding. Bring connectors, conveners, and adjacent communities into the room.Brayden
Open Collective project page for the demo day. Donation channel as secondary CTA.Artem
Video processing pipeline. Local LLM transcription to 30-second per-builder promo cuts. Megan and Momcilo sync session.Momcilo
02 · Beyond Day Zero

How we want the sessions to evolve

No one in the call locked the cadence, the phase names, or what comes after the first demo day. What we did was think out loud about the shape. Each card below is a direct quote from the call, presented with the speaker and timestamp so anyone can verify against the transcript. Read across them; the synthesis happens in your head, not in this doc.

03 · Owners

Who carries what

Each of these reflects what people offered or were assigned in the call. Anyone reading this doc can verify against the timestamps in the downloadable transcript.

MeganHouston
  • Participant intake. Harmonica survey design and operation.
  • Event branding. Visual identity for the series; cover image for the first demo day.
  • Co-leads Presenter Prep working group with Momcilo. Pitch lens via Local Brain, office-hours model.
  • CIBC Substack standup and recap production. Funnel destination and per-event recap posts.
  • Live chat synthesis. Real-time question or sentiment capture during the demo.
ArtemNovi Sad
  • Luma event page. Setup and promo cycle.
  • Expert outreach. Direct invitations to Newspeak House and adjacent expert pools.
  • Open Collective. Demo-day project page and donation channel.
  • Tool integrations. Harmonica intake hooks, AI notes, recording handling.
  • Communication operations. Telegram threads, Friday call hosting.
BraydenEcosystem weaving
  • Network expansion. Bringing the right people into each event. Light for Day Zero, heavier later.
  • Convener and session-holder pipeline. Connecting CIBC builders to communities seeking tools.
  • Cross-community matchmaking. Following up on matches surfaced at events.
MomciloProduction tooling
  • Co-leads Presenter Prep working group with Megan. Canva-based production help.
  • Local LLM transcription stack. Recording-to-asset pipeline foundation.
  • Video processing. 30-second per-builder promo cuts from recordings.
  • Cross-platform distribution workflow. Multi-channel content syndication tooling.
ChrisFacilitation craft · advisory
  • Case-clinic Q&A structure. Clarifications first, redefining the question, then ideas.
  • Story-circle techniques. Small-group feedback patterns for later phases if useful.
  • Live facilitation if his schedule allows.

Open questions for the next Friday call

  1. Open call vs. curated for the first demo day presenters? If we open it, we need a vetting process. If we curate, we need to confirm willingness from each builder within two weeks.
  2. What do we actually call the stages, and how do we handle the Chris caveat? Brayden sketched refine / matchmake / fund. Chris said projects don't have to start at the beginning. Momcilo said not every project ends at funder pitch. Worth a focused conversation.
  3. Cadence between events. Megan suggested every two weeks lightweight. Brayden said "a month out" for Day Zero. The space between subsequent events was not discussed.
  4. Membership criteria for new joiners after each event. Brayden suggested differentiating by profile type (builder, expert, observer, donor) using the CIBC map. Worth deciding before the event.
  5. Donor channel separation. Telegram is too inside; Substack is too outside. Is there a coalition-chat tier for high-touch contacts?
  6. CIBC domain. Substack works for the funnel; do we want a CIBC website later? Cost, time, and ownership questions all attached.

Top five actions

From the research report's aggregate section. Priority order, not alphabetical.

01
Invite Gurden Batra (DML Civic Tech Co-Lead, Berlin) to the demo day.
→ Dark Matter Labs · the likely match for "Gordon"
02
Ask Charlie Fisher whether Komma Systems is presenting-ready, and use him as a bridge to DML's Civic Tech Studio.
→ Coma · Dark Matter Labs
03
Ask for an intro to Claudia Chwalisz to share the demo day with DelibTech Network under Chatham House conditions.
→ Democracy Next · DelibTech Network
04
Post in the Metagov Slack (after completing their onboarding survey) seven to ten days before the event.
→ Metagov
05
Resolve the "Newsweek" reference with Artem before any outreach.
→ Newsweek
Research report The full ecosystem read Nine entities, aggregate map, strategic actions, source attribution. Read Back to the event Demo Day landing Register, see the demos, read about the format. Open