About GAIA
GAIA, the Gothenburg Artificial Intelligence Alliance, is a non-profit association promoting an interest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and data engineering in Gothenburg and the surrounding area. We were founded in October 2018 by merging the organisation behind the Machine Learning and Data Science (GBG) meetup group and the first GAIA Conference, held in April 2018.
We offer knowledge-sharing and networking through regular events. Our events are for engineers, by engineers. We hold a couple of meetups a year and arrange our conference annually in the spring. Between events, the conversation continues in the GAIA Slack.
Our board
Our board, elected at the annual meeting, is in charge of running the organisation. If you want to help, contact us about giving a talk or hosting an event, organising the annual conference, partnering, or anything else. The board for 2027:
Chair
Jakob Andersson
Jakob co-founded GAIA in 2018 after leading the Machine Learning and Data Science (GBG) meetup group and has served as chair since 2019. He is the Vice President of Engineering at Anaphora and holds an M.Sc. in Complex Adaptive Systems from Chalmers University of Technology.
Treasurer
Josefin Scott
Josefin is a founding member of GAIA and a member of the board. She works at Recorded Future.
Board member
Christian Thelin
Christian has been a board member of GAIA since 2026 and is a co-founder of TokenTek.
Board member
Danila Petrelli
Danila is a board member at GAIA and works at AI Sweden.
Board member
Daryna Pesina
Originally from Ukraine, Daryna joined the GAIA conference committee for the 2024 conference and the board in 2026.
Board member
Matteo Molteni
Matteo is a data engineer with a background in computational mathematics. Matteo has spent many years working in data science, machine learning, and data engineering. Matteo joined the GAIA board in 2026, having served on the conference committee since the 2024 conference.
Earlier boards
- 2026
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josefin Scott (treasurer), Christian Thelin, Danila Petrelli, Daryna Pesina, Matteo Molteni
- 2025
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josefin Scott (treasurer), Amanda Bowald (secretary), Danila Petrelli
- 2024
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josefin Scott (treasurer), Amanda Bowald (secretary), Danila Petrelli, Niklas Antončić
- 2023
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josefin Scott (treasurer), Amanda Bowald (secretary), Danila Petrelli, Erika Pauliukevičiūtė, Niklas Antončić
- 2022
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josef Lindman Hörnlund (treasurer), Josefin Scott (secretary), Amanda Bowald, Viktor Olsbo
- 2021
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josef Lindman Hörnlund (treasurer), Josefin Scott (secretary), Amanda Bowald, Anna Katariina Wisakanto, Viktor Olsbo
- 2020
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josef Lindman Hörnlund (treasurer), Josefin Scott (secretary), Amanda Bowald, Elin Romare, Jesper Derehag, Viktor Olsbo
- 2019
- Jakob Andersson (chair), Josef Lindman Hörnlund (treasurer), Josefin Scott (secretary), Amanda Bowald, Daniel Langkilde, Elin Romare
The history of GAIA
The roots of GAIA trace back to 2014—only two years after AlexNet by Krizhevsky, Sutskever, and Hinton ushered in the modern era of artificial intelligence—when the meetup group Machine Learning and Data Science (GBG) was started in Gothenburg by local enthusiasts.
The community grew, and the meetup group changed organisers as the years passed. By 2017, the interest was so huge that it became a problem, with typical 60–80-seat meetups filling up in five minutes. Thus, organisers Jakob Andersson and Daniel Langkilde had the idea to try something bigger: an actual conference. Josef Lindman Hörnlund, Amanda Bowald (then Nilsson), Josefin Scott (then Ondrus), and Elin Romare joined to form our first conference committee. We picked the name GAIA (yes, we decided on the abbreviation first) during one of our initial planning breakfasts at the coffee shop da Matteo on Magasinsgatan in Gothenburg.
The first GAIA Conference was a huge success. We sold all 500 tickets and filled the largest conference hall at the Lindholmen Conference Centre. Seventeen speakers across two tracks and 11 partners made for an exciting start.
Everything was still privately organised, and the success made it apparent that we needed to start an organisation and get a proper bank account. So, during the autumn of 2018, we formally founded the Gothenburg Artificial Intelligence Alliance. We wrote our statutes and moved the meetup group and the conference under the umbrella of our new non-profit association. The rest is history.
Contact us
If you have any questions or want to contact the organisation, please email us or submit your message using our contact form. If you want to join the conversation around AI, machine learning, data science, and data engineering, our Slack is the place.
Gothenburg Artificial Intelligence Alliance
c/o Jakob Andersson
Splintvedsgatan 7
431 51 Mölndal
Sweden
info@gaia.fish
Statutes
Our statutes (PDF) set out how GAIA is run. They are in Swedish, with an English translation.
Annual reports
We publish an annual report each year covering what we did, how the organisation is doing, and where we are headed. The reports are presented at our annual meeting and made available here.