Program
Draft Programme — 30 October 2026
Master of Ceremonies: Dr. Merve Hickok
| Time | Session / Speaker(s) | Purpose & Expected Output | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:30–09:00 | Registration & Table Orientation | Check in, meet table colleagues and confirm table roles, moderator and working template. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 09:00–09:10 | Opening Speech Dr. Hideo Ohno, President of NICT | Welcome participants and introduce the importance of multilingual and multicultural AI. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 09:10–09:15 | Workshop Mandate Dr. Thierry Warin, Invited Advisor of NICT | Set the four cross-disciplinary questions, two whole-room syntheses and outputs needed for the GPAI Plenary and follow-through. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 09:15–09:45 |
Why Now? Cultural and Cognitive Sovereignty in the AI Age
Dr. Yuko Harayama, Secretary General, Tokyo Centre of the GPAI Expert Community Dr. Thierry Warin, Invited Advisor of NICT |
Connect Asia-Pacific linguistic diversity with cultural adequacy, platform lock-in and the risk of dependency on systems designed elsewhere. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 09:45–10:15 | Keynote Mr. Yukio Teramura, Assistant Vice Minister for International Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan | “Challenges of Multilingual and Multicultural Societies and the Hiroshima AI Process” | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 10:15–10:20 | Photo Session | ||
| 10:20–10:30 | Coffee Break | Refreshments and informal cross-table exchange. | |
| 10:30–11:15 | Working Session 1 — Where and Why Does AI Fail? Led by moderators | Across languages and cultures, all three tables identify failure modes, causes, consequences, affected communities and evidence gaps. Output: a cross-disciplinary failure map. This links harm, technical causes and incentives. | Meeting Room C Meeting Room D Collaboration Space 2 |
| 11:15–12:00 | Working Session 2 — What Counts as Culturally Adequate AI? Led by moderators | Define cultural adequacy through contextual principles, test cases, metrics, data rights and community-validation rules. Output: requirements for a pilot evaluation framework. This links legitimacy, performance and adoption. | Meeting Room C Meeting Room D Collaboration Space 2 |
| 12:00–12:15 | Coffee Break | Refreshments and preparation for synthesis. | |
| 12:15–12:45 | Whole-Room Synthesis A — Diagnosis and Evaluation Led by Dr. Thierry Warin | All participants reconvene to combine answers to Questions 1 and 2, surface tensions and agree the problem statement, priorities and evaluation requirements. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 12:45–13:45 | Networking Lunch | Build cross-country and cross-disciplinary connections around candidate pilots and data or benchmark assets. | LAB Lounge |
| 13:45–14:05 | Keynote Dr. Satoshi Sekine, Project Professor, National Institute of Informatics / Deputy Director, Japan-AISI | “Introducing AI Safety Benchmark data as a community effort in Japan” | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 14:05–14:50 | Working Session 3 — How Can Culturally Adequate AI Scale? Led by moderators | Identify community adoption conditions, technical deployment paths, economic incentives, financing or procurement options and accountability mechanisms. Output: scale-up pathways and pilot criteria. This links trust, feasibility and incentives. | Meeting Room C Meeting Room D Collaboration Space 2 |
| 14:50–15:35 | Working Session 4 — What Policy Principles Should Guide Culturally Adequate AI? Led by moderators | Formulate principles for participation, data stewardship, transparency, evaluation, access, competition, accountability and cross-border cooperation. Test how they should guide technical design and institutional decisions. Output: policy principles and implementation criteria. This links cultural legitimacy, technical obligations and enforceable governance. | Meeting Room C Meeting Room D Collaboration Space 2 |
| 15:35–15:50 | Coffee Break | Refreshments and preparation for synthesis. | |
| 15:50–16:20 | Whole-Room Synthesis B — Scaling and Policy Principles Led by Dr. Thierry Warin | All participants reconvene to combine answers to Questions 3 and 4, resolve tensions among cultural legitimacy, technical feasibility, market incentives and public accountability, and agree priorities for action. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 16:20–16:35 | Coffee Break | Refreshments and preparation for final validation. | |
| 16:35–17:10 | Evidence Challenge Lab — Test Claims and Resolve Trade-offs Led by Dr. Thierry Warin | Translate the four answers into Working Group workstreams; assign leads, deliverables and deadlines for policy development, information exchange, data linkage and benchmark design; assess whether a regional AI commons could implement the agreed principles. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| 17:10–17:15 | Closing & Next Milestone Dr. Yuko Harayama, Secretary General, Tokyo Centre of the GPAI Expert Community | Confirm commitments, the report-revision process and the next coordination date; formal close by GPAI Tokyo Centre / UCRI. | Collaboration Space 1 |
| Reception — Master of Ceremonies: Dr. Merve Hickok | |||
| 17:30– | Open Door | LAB Lounge | |
| 17:50– | Opening Speech Dr. Thierry Warin, Invited Advisor of NICT Toast — Dr. Nozomu Nishinaga, Director General, Universal Communication Research Institute | LAB Lounge | |
| 18:00– | Networking Session | LAB Lounge | |
| 19:00– | Closing Remarks Dr. Yuko Harayama, Secretary General, Tokyo Centre of the GPAI Expert Community | LAB Lounge | |
Method: All three tables answer the same question in parallel; plenaries follow Sessions 1–2 and 3–4; Working Group commitments follow Question 4.