Jesse McKeeCA
Jesse McKee is Head of Digital Strategy at 221A, a Vancouver-based cultural infrastructure organization and registered charity dedicated to stewarding physical and digital assets in the public interest. Across a portfolio of roughly 140,000 square feet of commercial space, 221A advances the idea of cultural infrastructure as a public asset, governed transparently and held accountable to the communities it serves.
McKee's work focuses on developing new financial and institutional architecture for the cultural sector. This includes building a benefit corporation model and researching governance structures capable of sustaining charitable purpose while building long-term resilience — work that sits at the intersection of policy, finance, and cultural stewardship.
221A is the western Canadian partner in the proposed National Public AI Lab, a multi-institution coalition convened with OCAD University to develop publicly governed, sovereign alternatives to large commercial AI models. Through this initiative, McKee and 221A are contributing to a broader effort to ensure that the infrastructure of artificial intelligence serves collective interests rather than consolidating power in the hands of a few.
