The Serica Initiative will convene the 2026 AAPI Trailblazers Conference, Owning Our Stories in the Age of AI, in New York on November 4. The gathering connects a practical question about professional readiness with a cultural question about authorship: how can Asian American and Pacific Islander leaders help shape the systems that represent their work and communities? For founders and operators, the program offers a way to examine AI decisions alongside people working in research, journalism, education and the arts.
The conference is scheduled for 11:30 AM to 6:00 PM at 135 Madison Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Its announced lineup includes Columbia University's Jeannette M. Wing, BRIDGE AI Lab founder Ngoc Cindy Pham, SXD founder Shelly Xu and Committee of 100 President Paul Cheung. The organizer says no AI expertise is required, inviting a broader conversation about the judgment that accompanies technical adoption.
Serica's published program moves from lunch and a keynote into discussions about AAPI leadership, a career workshop, a narrative panel and a performance. That progression gives the afternoon a useful internal logic. Participants can move between questions about building trustworthy technology and questions about what people want that technology to preserve, express or change.
Ngoc Cindy Pham is scheduled to lead the BRIDGE workshop on career readiness in the age of AI. NYU Tandon's faculty profile identifies Ngoc Cindy Pham as a visiting research professor and an associate professor of marketing at Brooklyn College, CUNY, as well as founder and principal investigator of BRIDGE AI Lab. Her research addresses AI literacy, workforce readiness and responsible use, giving the practical session a clear connection to professional decision-making.
For a manager, the relevant distinction is between completing a task and understanding the work well enough to evaluate its output. A draft generated quickly still needs someone who can recognize a missing assumption, an unsuitable recommendation or a misleading description of a customer. A workshop devoted to career agency creates room to discuss those choices before they become invisible habits.
The program's accessibility matters for the same reason. Staff members who commission, review, teach or publish AI-assisted work may influence its consequences without writing the underlying software. Bringing those roles into a shared discussion can help an organization ask better questions about responsibility, training and the limits of delegation.
Jeannette M. Wing, Columbia's Executive Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science, is scheduled to deliver the opening afternoon keynote. Columbia's institutional biography documents earlier leadership at Microsoft Research, Carnegie Mellon University and the National Science Foundation. That experience connects the conference's discussion of trustworthy AI to institutions where research priorities, technical work and public responsibility meet.
The roster also includes Qin Gao, Columbia's Maurice V. Russell Professor of Social Policy and Social Work Practice. Qin Gao's research on inequality and Asian American communities brings a different set of questions to a technology discussion. An operator assessing an AI-enabled service can ask whose circumstances the service recognizes, who gets to challenge its description and what evidence the organization would need to answer those questions responsibly.
Shelly Xu, founder and CEO of SXD, adds a product and design perspective. MIT Solve's SXD profile describes the company's work using AI in zero-waste product design. The relevant connection is the translation of a technical approach into a specific material problem, offering participants a concrete business setting for discussing AI's application.
The organizer also announces AWS program leader Lily Xu for the luncheon and Paul Cheung for the closing keynote. Committee of 100's 2026 leadership program independently identifies Paul Cheung as its president. Their scheduled contributions place entrepreneurial opportunity and community leadership alongside the research conversation..
Serica's narrative panel addresses AI's relationship with authorship, authenticity and cultural representation. The announced speakers include Rubina Fillion, Deputy Editorial Director for A.I. Initiatives at The New York Times; editorial strategy advisor Bourree Lam of InPress; and Tina Wang, cultural critic and president of AAJA New York. The organizer's published roster establishes their planned participation, while individual panel assignments remain unspecified.
Artists give that conversation another kind of evidence. Sasha Stiles works across poetry, language and AI, and is scheduled to perform during the afternoon. Xin Ying's own project page describes work connecting choreography, generative technology and the legacy of Martha Graham. Their practices make cultural memory an active creative problem that can be discussed through specific work.
For a newsroom, classroom or product team, representation enters ordinary decisions: which sources are used, which descriptions survive review and who has authority to correct the result. If an AI-assisted account of a community loses important context, the problem can reach the reader as a confident sentence. That makes editorial judgment and feedback channels relevant to the operating conversation from the beginning.
The business implication is practical. Organizations designing or deploying AI can learn from people whose professions depend on preserving meaning across changes in medium. Journalists, researchers and artists bring different standards for accuracy, interpretation and authorship; comparing those standards can expose assumptions that a demonstration of speed alone leaves unexamined.
The official registration page lists several access options. As checked on October 11, the full-package early-bird ticket is $219 before fees, available through October 16 or while supplies last; the standard full package is $250. Conference-plus-cocktails admission is $150, lunch-only admission is $110, and the VIP package is $350. Readers should confirm current availability and fees before purchasing, particularly because lunch-only admission excludes the afternoon conference and reception.
Networking is built into the luncheon, the afternoon break and the closing reception. The agenda creates opportunities for people from different disciplines to compare concerns, but the usefulness of those conversations will depend on preparation and follow-up. A founder could bring a concrete question about how a product represents users; an educator could bring a question about which skills students need to retain when using AI.
This conference fits DevCuration's event coverage through its connection between emerging technology and the people making institutional choices around it. Its significance rests in the program's combination of professional readiness and narrative agency, with enough specificity to help prospective attendees judge whether the room matches their work.
After November 4, the questions raised on Madison Avenue can return to hiring discussions, editorial reviews, classrooms and product meetings. Those are the places where an idea about owning a story becomes a decision about sources, tools, training and who gets to make the next correction.
Serica says no AI expertise is required. The program is relevant to founders, operators, educators, newsroom leaders and artists who make decisions about AI-assisted work, professional readiness or cultural representation.
The planned agenda combines a BRIDGE career workshop with discussions of AAPI leadership and narrative authorship. This gives participants a way to compare practical AI use with questions about whose experience and perspective technology represents.
Attendees can bring a specific question about how they use or evaluate AI at work. The workshop and cross-disciplinary networking offer opportunities to discuss that question, while commercial or career outcomes depend on participants’ own follow-up.
The full package, VIP package and conference-plus-cocktails option include afternoon programming. The $110 lunch-only option excludes the afternoon conference and cocktail reception; readers should confirm current prices, fees and availability on the official registration page.
The conference is scheduled for November 4, 2026, from 11:30 AM to 6:00 PM at 135 Madison Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Registration is through the Serica Initiative’s official event page, which should be checked for current availability and program changes.