We present a model of a student-led community of researchers to highlight the impact of pursuing collaborative machine learning research on the group’s members individually as well as towards achieving shared goals. We provide concrete examples of the guiding principles that led to the evolution of the collaborative from a reading group into a research group and eventually launching a non-profit software product to help non-technical stakeholders leverage artificial intelligence (AI), improving access to advanced technologies, and promoting open science. Our goal is to lay out a template to launch similar small-scale collaborative organisations at different institutes around the world.