PNC 2026 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings
Intelligence in Context:
Practices, Impact, and Connection
September 09-11, 2026 @ Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts, New Taipei City, Taiwan (ROC)
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Keynote Speakers
Dr. Kiyonori Nagasaki 永崎 研宣 博士
- Professor, Library and Information Science, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, Japan
- Senior fellow, International Institute for Digital Humanities, Japan
Research Interests
Digital research environment for Buddhist studies, Digital research environment for Japanese studies, Digital methods for the humanities
Biography
Kiyonori Nagasaki is Professor of Library and Information Science at Keio University and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Digital Humanities in Tokyo. His research focuses on Digital Humanities, particularly the digital representation and scholarly use of East Asian historical texts. He has been involved in the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database project since 2005 and has contributed to international standards and technologies including Unicode, the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), and IIIF. He has also been active in developing methods, guidelines, and tools for encoding East Asian texts and in promoting their adoption through research and education. He currently serves as Chair of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities and is engaged in several projects exploring sustainable scholarly infrastructures and the roles of AI in the study of East Asian historical texts.
The Roles of AI and Human Expertise in Building Scholarly Contexts:
Perspectives from East Asian Text Encoding
[Abstract]
Recent advances in AI are transforming the ways in which historical texts can be transcribed, analyzed, and explored. In Japan, however, the digital representation of historical texts has developed over several decades through sustained scholarly and technical efforts. One important example is the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database project, which has contributed to the digitization and scholarly use of Buddhist canonical texts while engaging with broader developments in character encoding, Unicode, TEI, IIIF, and OCR. Such activities have accumulated considerable experience in representing textual features that are especially important for East Asian materials.
These experiences are now being extended through broader initiatives, including a MEXT-commissioned DH Consortium project that promotes the development and dissemination of text encoding methods for East Asian materials. East Asian texts pose challenges involving character variants, complex textual transmission, commentarial layers, relationships between text and image, and culturally specific forms of annotation. Addressing them requires not only technical tools but also scholarly interpretation, explicit data models, international standards, and communities capable of maintaining and refining them.
AI can greatly assist transcription, annotation, comparison, and discovery, but its effectiveness depends on the scholarly contexts within which texts are represented and interpreted. Drawing on activities developed in Japan and on challenges shared across East Asian textual traditions, this presentation discusses how accumulated human expertise, interoperable standards, and AI can complement one another in building sustainable scholarly knowledge infrastructures for East Asia.
Dr. Michael Friedrich 傅敏怡 博士
- Retired Senior Professor, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC), University of Hamburg, Germany
Research Interests
Sinology, Buddhist studies, Neo-Confucianism of the Sung-Ming Period, History of Modern China
Biography
Preserving, Studying, and Disseminating Written Heritage
[Abstract]
Written artefacts are an important segment of cultural heritage. They have been produced since the invention of writing five millennia ago and include administrative documents and literary manuscripts, hand-drawn maps and printed books, engravings on stone, metal and other materials, and range from ephemeral graffiti to luxury editions and monumental inscriptions. These artefacts belong to various individuals, group and states; together they constitute an essential part of humankind’s memory. In spite of possible legal and ethical caveats in some cases, it is generally accepted that these artefacts must be preserved and made accessible to the general public.
After some general considerations, the talk will present a holistic approach that includes and combines preservation, research and outreach. Using evidence from various cultures, it will be shown how this cycle of valorisation depends on artefacts on the one hand, on the other on the circumstances on the ground. Special attention will be paid to all actors involved: curators, librarians, archivists, scholars, scientists, teachers, and the institutions they work for.
Dr. Lee-feng Chien 簡立峰 博士
- Partner, Taiwan Leap Venture, Taiwan
- Former Managing Director, Google Taiwan
- Former Deputy Director, Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica
Research Interests
Artificial Intelligence, Language Modeling, Information Retrieval,
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management
Biography
Dr. Lee-Feng Chien has dedicated his career to the advancement of software technology. From 2006 to 2020, he served as the first employee and Managing Director of Google Taiwan, successfully transforming it into Asia's largest R&D center.
After retiring from Google in 2020, Dr. Chien actively engaged with Taiwan's startup ecosystem. He holds board positions at leading AI startups such as Appier, iKala, and KKDay. Notably, Appier's listing in Japan marked it as Taiwan's first AI unicorn. Dr. Chien also advises established companies on AI and information technology development, serving on the boards of companies including Airoha, Uni-President Enterprises, Chunghwa Telecom, and ASUSTeK Computer. He is also an economic advisor to the Executive Yuan's Economic Development Committee.
Dr. Chien has a deep involvement in academia. In 1991, he earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from National Taiwan University with research on Chinese language models. From 1993 to 2006, he was a researcher and Deputy Director at Academia Sinica's Institute of Information Science. Concurrently, from 2001 to 2006, he held a joint appointment with the Department of Information Management at National Taiwan University. He is recognized as an early contributor to the fields of Chinese natural language processing and artificial intelligence.
The Evolution of AI Agents:
Redefining Human-AI Collaboration
[Abstract]
The rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence is driving a profound shift from passive question answering tools to autonomous AI agents. As these intelligent agents seamlessly integrate into our workspaces and daily lives, they are doing more than just automating tasks—they are fundamentally redefining the relationship between humans and machines.
This speech explores the latest technological trends in Agentic AI and examines its transformative impact on organizational workflows and job requirements. Rather than simply replacing human labor, AI agents present an unprecedented opportunity to redesign how we work, enabling individuals to "work smarter," bridge execution gaps, and accomplish ambitious goals that were previously out of reach.
As workflows transition from human execution to human-AI collaboration, the core competencies of the workforce must evolve. While technical adaptability is crucial, uniquely human soft skills—such as critical thinking, strategic empathy, and visionary leadership—become the ultimate differentiators. Finally, the session will address the critical challenge of the AI divide, emphasizing that the true success of this paradigm shift relies on inclusive, cross-disciplinary, and international collaboration to ensure the benefits of Agentic AI are equitably distributed globally.
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