I wanted to share the announcement for the annual Pacific Neighborhood Consortium meeting. I've attended many of these over the years, and they are consistently full of interesting material in my experience.

I don't know how the sessions are going to be scheduled in terms of time zones, but hopefully they'll be available for subsequent replay as well.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI



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PNC 2021 Annual Conference and Joint Meetings

Call for Participation 

Main Theme: Sustainable Digital Heritage

Dates: September 28-30 (Tuesday-Thursday)

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/pnc2021/
Online Registration: https://conference.iis.sinica.edu.tw/surl/pnc2021/reg
Keynote Speakers: see below

Dear Colleagues,


We welcome you to join us at PNC 2021. Due to the ongoing uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s conference will be held online. The theme of PNC 2021 is “Sustainable Digital Heritage.” 

About PNC
The Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC) was founded at the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. In 1997, the administrative operations were transferred to the Academia Sinica, Taiwan, a leading academic institution in Asia. Since then, PNC has encouraged scholars, academic institutions, and universities to collaborate and exchange their academic resources and research expertise through annual conferences, which have been held across many countries for 24 years.
The mission of the Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC) is to facilitate information exchanges among institutions of higher education in the Pacific Rim through computing and communications technology. PNC explores issues of information and technology exchange, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the development of the cultural knowledge contents. In fostering access to digitized data on the Pacific Rim, the PNC serves as a portal for access to digital research. It helps scholars to find the library, archive, and museum materials needed to support both teaching and research. The ultimate goal is to enable scholars to regard themselves, not as separated by vast distances, but as residents of a virtual neighborhood.
This year, we are honored to have three keynote speakers, Prof. Lewis Lancaster, Prof. Halina Gottlieb, and Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang with us!

Lewis Lancaster
Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley
Founding Director, ECAI (Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative)
Keynote Title: “Preserving the Narrative"
Professor Lewis Lancaster is a co-founder of Pacific Neighborhood Consortium. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley for 33 years. He held the D.H. Chen Distinguished Professor in Buddhist Studies chair and is now Professor Emeritus.  In 1991, he helped to form the program for the University of the West, started at Hsilai Temple in Los Angeles and he is still an adjunct Professor.  In 2006 he was appointed President of the University. He founded the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI) at Berkeley and remains its Director. The most recent research project, an Atlas of Maritime Buddhism, has become the basis for a major exhibition at Buddha Museum at Fo Guang Shan and will also open as an exhibit at City University of Hong Kong. 
 
Halina Gottlieb
CEO, Digital Heritage Center Sweden
Founding Director, NODEM (Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums)
Keynote Title: “Designing for a Sustainable Future in Digital Heritage”
Halina Gottlieb is a facilitator, co-ordinator and mentor in academia, governmental agencies, visitor centers, research & development programs, and research clusters for innovation of digital heritage and modernization of higher education. Her research focus is on development and evaluation of digital artifacts and methods, tools and course modules supporting interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial programs.
Halina obtained a PhD in digital heritage and design research with the dissertation Designing Engagement for Art – Exploring Interfaces and Interpretive Content of Digital Heritage Artifacts in Museum Environments at the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute University College Dublin, Ireland and Interactive Institute Swedish ICT, Sweden.
She had been affiliated (1999-2020) at the Interactive Institute Swedish ICT Stockholm, the Executive Committee of EPOCH (European Network of Excellence in Cultural Heritage), the European  Network of Expertise Centers, NODEM (Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums) conference series, DIHA - an interdisciplinary research cluster at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and the Nordic Knowledge Triangle Program at the Nordic Council of Ministers and has been managing director of Digital Heritage Center Sweden.
 
Audrey Tang
Digital Minister, Executive Yuan, Taiwan
Keynote Title: “Digital Social Innovation”
Audrey Tang is Taiwan’s digital minister in charge of Social Innovation. 
Audrey is known for revitalizing the computer languages Perl and Haskell, as well as building the online spreadsheet system EtherCalc in collaboration with Dan Bricklin.
In the public sector, Audrey served on Taiwan national development council’s open data committee and the 12-year basic education curriculum committee; and led the country’s first e-Rulemaking project.
In the private sector, Audrey worked as a consultant with Apple on computational linguistics, with Oxford University Press on crowd lexicography, and with Socialtext on social interaction design.
In the social sector, Audrey actively contributes to g0v (“gov zero”), a vibrant community focusing on creating tools for the civil society, with the call to “fork the government.”
 
We look forward for your participation.
Thank you for your continued support!
Best regards,
 
Betty & Joanna
PNC Secretariat
Tel: +886-2-2652-1885#313
       +886-2-2652-1885#309
Fax: +886-2-2652-1882
E-mail: pnc@sinica.edu.tw
Address:P.O. Box 1-76 Nankang, Taipei 115, Taiwan
Website: https://www.pnclink.org