PNC 2026 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings to Take Place in Taiwan in September, Bringing Global Experts Together at Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts

The Pacific Neighborhood Consortium 2026 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings (PNC 2026) will return to Taiwan this year and will be held at the Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts from September 9 to 11. The conference will feature keynote presentations by internationally renowned experts, including Kiyonori Nagasaki, a leading scholar in Buddhist studies and digital humanities from Japan; Michael Friedrich, a German authority on Chinese studies; and Lee-Feng Chien (簡立峰), a prominent figure in Taiwan’s information science and AI industries.

PNC 2026 is organized by Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts and Pacific Neighborhood Consortium, with co-organization support from Academia Sinica, Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI), and Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. Under the theme “Intelligence in Context: Practices, Impact, and Connection,” this year’s conference will bring together scholars and experts from around the world to explore current developments and future trends in the application of artificial intelligence across digital culture, digital heritage preservation, education, business, and other fields.

The conference will feature three special keynote lectures delivered by three distinguished international experts. Kiyonori Nagasaki, Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Science at the Faculty of Letters, Keio University, Japan, and Senior Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Digital Humanities, has devoted years to the development of the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database and has played an active role in establishing and promoting international standards such as Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines and the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). His work emphasizes data sustainability and accessibility. Drawing on his extensive experience in managing East Asian classical texts, his keynote will examine the roles of AI and human expertise in constructing scholarly contexts.

Michael Friedrich, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg, Germany, specializes in Chinese paleography, historical texts, Neo-Confucianism, Buddhist studies, and manuscript culture. As one of the key pioneers in the interdisciplinary study of written artefacts, he will present an integrated perspective on the preservation, research, and dissemination of textual heritage, exploring how written materials ranging from everyday graffiti to ancient inscriptions can generate cultural and social value within contemporary local contexts.

Lee-Feng Chien (簡立峰), currently a partner at Taiwan’s Fubon Angel Venture Capital, previously served as a research fellow and deputy director of the Institute of Information Science at Academia Sinica and as Managing Director of Google Taiwan, where he helped connect Taiwan’s technology ecosystem with global technology leaders. Combining academic and industrial perspectives, he will deliver a keynote titled “The Evolution of AI Agents: Redefining Human-AI Collaboration.” The talk will examine the latest technological trends in Agentic AI as well as discuss its transformative impact on enterprise workflows and future workforce requirements.

The Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts stated that the three-day PNC 2026 conference will include not only keynote speeches but also various paper presentations, ECAI workshops, an academic poster competition and exhibition, as well as showcases of recent achievements including Academia Sinica publications, digital humanities research projects, and digital humanities tools. Through concrete digital practices, the conference aims to explore the profound impact of technology on contemporary society in addition  to fostering the collaborative development of “intelligence in context,” while further enhancing Taiwan’s international academic influence.


Conference information: https://sites.google.com/view/pnc2026
Original text in Chinese and photos: Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts.
Translation: Patricia Yang 
Editing: Keith Brown