The "Pacific Neighborhood Consortium 2026 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings
"(PNC 2026) will return to Taiwan this year, grandly held at Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts (DILA) from September 9th to 11th. The conference particularly invited Kiyonori Nagasaki, a leading pioneer in Japanese Buddhist studies and digital humanities; Michael Friedrich, a renowned German Sinology authority; and Lee-Feng Chien, a legendary trailblazer in Taiwan’s computer science and AI industries, presenting three exceptional keynote speeches.
PNC 2026 is hosted by Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts and the Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC), co-hosted by Academia Sinica, the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI), and the Ministry of Education of Taiwan. Centered on the main theme "Intelligence in Context: Practices, Impact, and Connection," this year's conference aims to gather experts and scholars around the world to explore current applications and future trends of AI across diverse fields, such as digital culture, heritage preservation, education, and business.
The conference features three distinguished keynote speeches delivered by world-class field experts. Kiyonori Nagasaki, Professor of Library and Information Science in the Faculty of Letters at Keio University and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Digital Humanities (IIDH), Japan, is a leading scholar in East Asian digital humanities who has long spearheaded the development of the "SAT Daizokyo Text Database." He has dedicated his career to the development, standardization, and promotion of international standards, such as the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), with a profound focus on data sustainability and interoperability; in his upcoming keynote, he will draw on his extensive practical experience with East Asian classics to examine the respective roles of AI and human expertise in building scholarly contexts.
Michael Friedrich, Founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg, Germany, specializes in Sinology, Neo-Confucianism of the Sung-Ming Period, Buddhist studies, and manuscript culture, and is a pivotal founding figure of the global cross-disciplinary research paradigm for "written artefacts." His speech will adopt an integrated perspective encompassing the "Preserving, Studying, and Disseminating Written Heritage" to demonstrate how diverse written artefacts—ranging from ephemeral graffiti to monumental inscriptions—can be revitalized to unleash fresh cultural and social value within contemporary local contexts.
Lee-Feng Chien, Partner of Taiwan Leap Venture, who formerly served as a Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Institute of Information Science at Academia Sinica, and was also the former Managing Director of Google Taiwan, has successfully bridged Taiwan's tech sector with international giants. Leveraging his comprehensive vision spanning both academia and industry, he will deliver a talk titled "The Evolution of AI Agents: Redefining Human-AI Collaboration" to explore the latest technological trends in Agentic AI and examine its transformative impact on organizational workflows and job requirements.
Spanning three days, PNC 2026 will feature not only these prominent keynote speeches but also paper presentations, ECAI workshops, an academic poster competition and demonstration, as well as exciting displays of recent achievements in Academia Sinica's publications, digital humanities research projects, and digital humanities tools. Through these concrete digital practices, the conference aims to probe the profound impacts of technology across all facets of modern society. As participants collaboratively construct "Intelligence in Context," the event will further propel Taiwan's scholarly accomplishments onto the international stage, expanding its overseas reputation.
PNC 2026 Keynote Sessions
Topic: The Roles of AI and Human Expertise in Building Scholarly Contexts: Perspectives from East Asian Text Encoding
Date: September 9, 2026
Speaker: Kiyonori Nagasaki
Professor, Library and Information Science, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, Japan
Senior fellow, International Institute for Digital Humanities, Japan
Topic: Preserving, studying, and disseminating written heritage
Date: September 10, 2026
Speaker: Michael Friedrich
Retired Senior Professor, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC), University of Hamburg, Germany
Topic: The Evolution of AI Agents: Redefining Human-AI Collaboration
Date: September 11, 2026
Speaker: Lee-Feng Chien
Partner, Taiwan Leap Venture, Taiwan
Former Managing Director, Google Taiwan
Former Deputy Director, Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica
Pacific Neighborhood Consortium 2026 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings (PNC 2026)
Topic: Intelligence in Context: Practices, Impact, and Connection
Date: September 9-11, 2026
Venue: Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts, Jinshan District, New Taipei City, R.O.C.
Host: Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts (DILA)
Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC)
Co-hosts: Academia Sinica
Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI)
Ministry of Education, Taiwan
Patrons: Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies
CBETA Foundation
Taiwanese Association for Digital Humanities
Technical Sponsor: IEEE Taipei Section
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Conference Website: https://sites.google.com/view/pnc2026
