Phil Laznicek

Director, TNG Worker Cooperative · Sovereign AI Architect · Founder, Arytma

phil@tng.coop Calgary, Alberta, Canada Czech (Native) · English (Native) · German (Working) · Japanese (Elementary)

Summary

I design and build AI systems for places where failure has real institutional cost: hospitals, pharmaceutical work, government ministries, space systems and defence. The systems have to be auditable, sovereign and reliable in production.

I am one of the current directors of TNG. My main contribution there is technical: finding ways to apply AI so that workers spend less time on tedious tasks and more time on productive work. I also run Arytma, a small research lab in Calgary focused on sovereign and regulated AI. Before that I was the first AI architect at the Czech government’s Digital and Information Agency (DIA), at the rank of vrchní rada. Earlier I was AI and Data Architect at The Adecco Group.

Values

Sovereign systems. Humans command. Humans win.

I work on AI that stays under human and institutional control, especially in high-stakes domains. The aim is systems that support the people making decisions rather than replace them, stay auditable, and keep critical capabilities under national or organizational sovereignty.

Core Skills & Role

AI Architecture & Systems: Generative AI, local LLMs, RAG, agentic systems (LangGraph, AutoGen), neurosymbolic methods, Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, on-premise and secure deployment.
Broader Background: Solution and data architecture, full-stack development, enterprise data platforms, API design, production delivery.
In TNG: I serve as a director. Most of my effort goes into technical solutions and into using AI to reduce repetitive work and improve productivity.

TNG & Cooperative Work

TNG Worker Cooperative — Director Oct 2022 – Present (Ongoing)

Take part in the governance and direction of the cooperative as one of the current directors.
Concentrate on technical solutions and on applying AI to free workers from tedious work and raise productivity.
Work with other members on practical technology questions that come up in a worker-owned IT cooperative.

Professional Experience

Arytma — Founder & Principal AI Architect Feb 2016 – Present · Calgary, Alberta

Small Canadian research lab working on AI for regulated domains.

Healthcare and pharma: Clinical NLP mapped to ICD-11, graph neural networks for pharmacovigilance, agent-based epidemiological modelling, neurosymbolic clinical trial analytics.
Government and municipal: Secure retrieval over access-controlled documents, on-premise voice agents, agentic support for procurement.
Space systems: AryBotanist (neuromorphic plant health monitoring for deep-space bioregenerative life support), AryHydroGuard (autonomous water disinfection for closed-loop microgravity hydroponics), AryOrbit (radiation-hardened sovereign edge AI kernel). The systems were developed in response to Canadian Space Agency requirements related to space food production programs.
Infrastructure & Stack: Multi-agent systems with local LLMs, on-premise and air-gapped setups. Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangGraph, AutoGen, vector databases, Neo4j, PostgreSQL, Azure, AWS, GCP.

Digital and Information Agency (Czech Government) — Chief Counsellor (Vrchní Rada) & AI Architect Nov 2024 – Nov 2025 · Prague

Set architectural standards for sovereign on-premise AI across state institutions, with preference for open-weight models.
Helped move the government’s AI Competency Centre from pilots into production use.
Designed secure RAG pipelines so ministries could query sensitive internal documents without sending data to the cloud.
Advised on EU AI Act alignment and related risk questions.

The Adecco Group — AI and Data Architect, Senior Development Lead Dec 2019 – Sep 2024 · Prague / Berlin / Calgary

Global AI and data platforms for a large workforce company operating in more than 60 countries.
Early GPT-based career assistant.
Global Data Platform and Enterprise Data Warehouse.
Architecture for Global Business Intelligence; dynamic contract pricing and skills mapping.
Stack: Azure, GPT-4, Databricks, CosmosDB, MS SQL, Python, C#, Power BI.

BNC / ValueCommerce (Yahoo! Japan group) — SVP, Data Science, Architecture & Security Tokyo

Executive leadership across data science, system architecture, and enterprise cybersecurity infrastructure.

Deutsche Börse / Eurex — Clearing Systems Engineer Frankfurt

Mission-critical clearing and derivatives settlement systems during the historic European Euro monetary transition.

FGL Sports — Interim DBA Manager & BI Specialist Calgary

Enterprise database management, data warehouse optimization, and business intelligence analytics.