Courtney Ko
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Courtney's Basecamp

Building communities, partnerships, and product experiences for AI.

Community and partnerships at AI Valley. Previously NVIDIA.
Building useful AI products, with people at the heart.

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builders connected
11K+
events hosted
70+
hackathon registrations
500+
AI Valley Hub

Community & partnerships

AI Valley

Technical programming, partner experiences, and community operations for an AI builder ecosystem.

11K+builders connected
70+events hosted
View events
Builder lounge01 / 06
AI Valley / In the room
Builder lounge

Builder lounge1 / 6

Explore the work: AI Valley
AI Valley · Community & Ecosystem

Technical programs that connect AI builders and partners.

Owned programming, partnerships, and operating systems for a technical AI ecosystem in San Francisco.

View events
11K+
engineers and founders connected
500+
hackathon registrations
70+
events hosted

Problem

Builders need opportunities to try AI tools with peers. Partners need hands-on settings where developers can explore their products and APIs.

My Role

COO and community builder. I owned programming design, partnerships, event operations, and the systems behind community-led growth.

Process

  • Designed programming around what builders actually need: hands-on API adoption, hackathons, demos, and founder relationships.
  • Coordinated sponsors, partners, organizers, and builders so events created value on every side.
  • Built repeatable operating rhythms for events, outreach, activation, and community momentum.

What I Built

  • Technical hackathons, workshops, and founder events.
  • Partner experiences with AI infrastructure and ecosystem companies.
  • San Francisco all-women AI hackathon with 500+ registrations.
Builder lounge
Technical workshop
Builder conversations
Packed AI room
Founder talk
Female Founder Brunch
Community engine

Tools Used

Community-led growthEvent strategyPartnershipsDevRelOperationsAI APIs
Outcome

Connected 11K+ engineers and founders through an ecosystem of technical events, partner experiences, and community programming.

NVIDIA Lab

Automation & systems

NVIDIA

Enterprise automation and cross-functional execution. A self-serve workflow that went from two hours to 30 minutes.

2h → 30mworkflow processing time
3+team members enabled to self-serve
Courtney at NVIDIA headquarters
Explore the work: NVIDIA
NVIDIA · Automation Systems

Self-serve automation for enterprise operations workflows.

Owned workflow diagnosis, self-serve tooling, and Python automation that turned repetitive operations into faster self-serve systems.

2h → 30m
workflow processing time
3+
team members enabled to self-serve
AI
summaries for faster review workflows

Problem

Manual enterprise operations workflows were slow, repetitive, and dependent on specialized knowledge spread across systems and stakeholders.

My Role

Business Analyst, Automation & Systems. I identified workflow bottlenecks, translated operational pain points into scoped tooling, and built Python-powered automation flows.

Process

  • Mapped manual request workflows to isolate repeated decisions and fragile handoffs.
  • Partnered with stakeholders to define a self-serve workflow that non-specialists could use independently.
  • Prototyped automation paths, validated outputs, and tightened the experience around speed, trust, and consistency.

What I Built

  • Self-serve UI for recurring operations requests.
  • Python workflows that transform unstructured request data into structured inputs.
  • AI-powered summarization workflows for faster review and resolution.
Self-Serve Operations Console
Enterprise Workflow Automation
Live flow
Request intake
Normalize fields
Structured output
Case context
AI summary pass
Review brief
2h → 30m
workflow processing time
3+
team members enabled to self-serve
Operator view
1Validate request data
2Generate structured inputs
3Summarize review context

Tools Used

PythonInternal platformsAI summarizationWorkflow automationSelf-serve tooling
Outcome

Reduced repetitive work, improved process consistency, and gave the team a faster operating model without exposing sensitive internal details.

Pearle Port

Founder & AI product

Pearle

An AI travel product, from concept to private beta. LLM-powered itinerary generation and collaborative planning for groups.

3.9K+itineraries generated
10wMVP delivery timeline
Pearle AI group travel assistant with destination suggestions, chat input, and trip-planning progress
Explore the work: Pearle
Pearle · AI Travel Platform

An AI group travel planner that transformed messy inspiration into itineraries.

Founded, scoped, and shipped a 0 to 1 AI travel product with LLM-powered itinerary generation and collaborative planning flows.

10w
MVP delivery timeline
3.9K+
itineraries generated
25+
private beta users

Problem

Group travel planning starts with scattered inspiration, screenshots, social posts, and conflicting preferences. Turning that into a shared plan is tedious.

My Role

Founder and Product Lead. I owned product vision, roadmap, MVP scope, user flows, research loops, and launch priorities.

Process

  • Interviewed beta users to understand how groups collect, compare, and commit to travel ideas.
  • Defined the core itinerary generation loop and prioritized the fastest path to a usable MVP.
  • Iterated on private beta feedback to improve clarity, collaboration, and generated itinerary quality.

What I Built

  • LLM-powered itinerary generation experience.
  • Structured data pipeline for turning travel inspiration into editable plans.
  • Collaborative planning flows for groups comparing options.
AI planning loop
10w
MVP delivery timeline
3.9K+
itineraries generated
25+
private beta users
Validated demand for AI-assisted group travel planning and turned a broad consumer problem into a focused, testable product experience.

Tools Used

LLM APIsNLP pipelinesProduct strategyUser researchPrototypingRoadmapping
Outcome

Validated demand for AI-assisted group travel planning and turned a broad consumer problem into a focused, testable product experience.

Paca Village

Built by me

Small ideas. Shipped products.

All projects

Live AI product

PacaPlate

A playful AI meal-planning app with an alpaca companion, recipe suggestions, and grocery-list generation.

Visit PacaPlate
Travel Atlas

About

Curious about people.
Serious about building.

My background in psychology and UX shapes how I work: understand what people need, make the experience useful, and give them a reason to come back.

That has taken me from enterprise operations and product development to running technical events and building relationships across the AI ecosystem. I enjoy connecting the people building a product with the people who will use it.

Outside work, I’m usually planning a trip, testing a new idea, or finding another place for Opaca in something I build.

M.A. PsychologySan Francisco State University
B.S. Cognitive ScienceUC San Diego
More on LinkedIn
Courtney Ko
Courtney Ko
Courtney visiting Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu
A memory from Seoul
Seoul

How I work

People, products, and the systems between.

Product Strategy

Roadmaps · 0 to 1 MVPs · Experimentation · Launch loops

AI Automation

Workflow optimization · AI summaries · LLM APIs · Internal tools

Research & UX

User interviews · Journey mapping · Prototyping · Figma

Technical Fluency

Python · SQL · APIs · Data workflows · Internal systems

Builder Tools

Claude Code · Replit · Rapid prototypes · Prompt systems

Community Growth

Event strategy · Partnerships · DevRel · Founder ecosystems

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Let’s talk

Building an AI community, partnership, or product story?

I’d love to hear what your team is working on.

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OpacaHi, I'm Opaca. Let's go on an adventure!