Last week was a full week. Like, genuinely full: mayors, panels, happy hours, and a revelation about cheese portions.

Megan and Nicole are back to unpack a stretch that somehow included a civic tech incubation lab with the City of Portland and Oregon State University, a sold-out healthcare panel that had people fired up enough to walk out (we mean that as a compliment), and a happy hour collaboration with Prosper Portland that brought knife makers and violin professors into the same room to talk AI.

The healthcare conversation hit different: featuring Janet Johnson from the AI Governance Group, cancer patient and AI power-user Burt Rosen, and pediatrician Dr. Arpi Chalian, the panel dove into the real, messy, genuinely unresolved questions around AI in medicine.

Along the way:

🏙️ How a civic incubation lab at Big Pink is setting the stage for Portland Startup Week's hackathon in May

🩺 The "three-legged stool" model: you, your doctor, and your AI

🧬 N=1 medicine vs. population-level care — and why Burt cares most about one of those

⚖️ The uncomfortable space between AI's promise in healthcare and the very real risks of getting it wrong

🧀 The just-right amount of cheese (no, really — it was a breakthrough)

Plus: the mayor shakes hands and cleans up trash, a Nighthawk connection that somehow ties into the panel, and Nicole finally nailing the snack situation after years of cheese surplus.

Related links:

• Janet Johnson
• Burt Rosen
• Dr. Arpi Chalian
• Oregon State University AI Week
• Prosper Portland
• Upstart Collective
• Civic Incubation Lab
• AI Portland Calendar of Events