By Genevieve B. Kupang
This is the 4th of a series of 9 articles regarding the 6th Hanseatic League of Universities (HLU) Annual Conference.
May 6, 2026, Puli, Nantou County, Taiwan. At the heart of the conference’s forward-looking conversations was a bold institutional proposal from Dr. In Seok Kang (PhD, Caltech) of aSSIST University, whose presentation envisioned a new kind of doctoral formation for a world already shaped by agentic artificial intelligence. Established as a Seoul-based institution committed to AI talent development, aSSIST University has positioned itself as a “first mover” in graduate education, pioneering curricula that integrate the applications of AI into management, science, and technology.
Dr. Kang’s presentation extended this institutional DNA outward, proposing the World AI Doctoral Program under the banner of the American University of Creativity and Innovation (AUCI), a vision designed not for one country or campus but for a genuine borderless global community of scholars and practitioners. The aSSIST doctoral program track, which focuses on the convergence of AI and business through a practical, research-based curriculum, has cultivated global leadership as its defining purpose. Dr. Kang’s AUCI framework amplifies this aspiration to a planetary scale, proposing that doctoral education in the AI era must transcend institutional and national boundaries, equipping future leaders with the tools to navigate, shape, and humanize an increasingly AI-mediated world. The proposal resonated deeply with conference participants who recognized that the future university cannot simply add AI as a course or a tool, but must itself be reinvented from the inside out, starting with the highest level of scholarship it confers.
Two students from the NCNU Association of Indigenous Students, adorned in the beaded and feathered regalia of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples. I captured a moment of pure delight at the 6th HLU Annual Conference. Their presence is a living reminder that the future of education must honor the cultures that have always known how to belong to the land.
Beyond AI: Reimagining Universities Through Futures Literacy Toward Regenerative and Human-Centered Education -Presenter: Dr. Jezreel Larry Caunca from Northwestern University
Jezreel Larry R. Caunca, Director and Futures Education Specialist of Northwestern University’s Philippine Center for Foresight Education and Innovation Research Institute (PhilForesight), opened his presentation with a question that reverberated through the conference venue (Performing Arts Theater): Are universities preparing students for the future, or for a future that no longer exists? His answer was unflinching. Universities were architectured, designed for an era of stability, predictability, and linear progress; today’s world demands something fundamentally different. While artificial intelligence can optimize systems and process information at breathtaking speed, AI cannot define values, question systems, or imagine futures.
AI without direction, he warned, becomes an amplifier of existing problems and not a solution. The real missing capability, he argued, is Futures Literacy: the cultivated human capacity to imagine multiple futures, anticipate change, and shape decisions in the present. The future, in his framing, is not a destination. It is a direction we choose.
Dr. Jezreel Larry Caunca’s presentation calls on universities to cultivate Futures Literacy as the essential missing capability of the AI era, reimagining higher education as regenerative, relational, and anticipatory. The future, he reminds his audience, is a direction we choose.
What Caunca proposed as a corrective is as philosophically rich as it is practically urgent: a shift from extraction to regeneration, from institution to ecosystem, from control to connection. The university the world now needs is regenerative, relational, inclusive, and anticipatory, one that does not produce graduates but cultivates futures. His Dreams-Disruptions-Leadership framework offered a navigational compass: preferred futures as the orienting vision, forces of change as the honest reckoning, and the question of who we must become as the deepest leadership challenge.
Transformation, he insisted, must be lived and not simply taught. Universities must integrate indigenous knowledge, democratize futures thinking, engage communities, and embed foresight throughout learning. He closed with two questions that carry the weight of a mandate: What do we want to care for? What do we need to thrive together?
Dr. Jezreel Larry Caunca, who challenged conference delegates to imagine futures beyond AI, took that spirit of bold reimagining quite literally on the third day, soaring over the breathtaking valley of Puli township by paraglider. One arm outstretched as if embracing the horizon, he embodies his own invitation: the future is a direction we choose.
Future-Ready Universities in the AI Era: Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact
Dr. Madhu Chitkara, Pro Chancellor and President of Chitkara University in Punjab, India, opened her presentation with a premise both grounding and galvanizing: artificial intelligence is not arriving at the university gates as a threat but as a tool to unlock human potential. Framed around the institution’s guiding vision, “Explore Your Potential,” her address mapped how AI is reshaping what students learn, how faculty teach, how research is conducted, and how institutions make decisions. The argument at its heart was structural. AI-readiness, she emphasized, is not a single laboratory, a lone course, or a software license. It is an institutional operating model, one sustained by five interdependent pillars: an AI-ready digital infrastructure, an AI-integrated curriculum spanning all disciplines, hands-on laboratories and Centres of Excellence, a structured faculty development pathway, and an assessment system reformed to reward authentic thinking over rote performance.
Dr. Madhu Chitkara of Chitkara University (Punjab, India) at the WURI 2026 Global Conference, Puli, Taiwan. Behind her, the commitment is clear: “Chitkara University declares its strategic readiness to be an AI-ready University.” #HelloFuture
The presentation’s most enduring contribution to the conference conversation may be its elegant three-part ethical framework: Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact. Innovation keeps universities relevant; Inclusion keeps them responsible; Impact keeps them meaningful. Chitkara University’s five-level teacher training pathway operationalizes this framework with rare specificity, guiding faculty from foundational AI literacy through classroom application and assessment design, all the way to discipline-specific tools and research integrity. The session closed with what amounted to a public declaration: Chitkara University commits to integrating artificial intelligence across teaching, learning, research, governance, student support, and industry engagement. It is a commitment rooted not in technological enthusiasm alone but in a deliberate, humanist insistence that AI serve equity, empower educators, and produce graduates ready to lead in an AI-driven world.
Media Interview:
The conference resonance extended beyond its delegates. FTV English News, Taiwan’s national English-language broadcaster, took note, bringing the gathering’s global significance to a wider audience.
The conference was featured on Taiwan’s national English-language news, and we are honored that its international significance was recognized by national media…
Taiwan National English News Coverage (FTV English News): https://english.ftvnews.com.tw/news/2026508W0AEA
This is the 4th in a series of 9 articles. Here are the links to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd articles:
2) https://www.pressenza.com/2026/05/where-the-stones-speak-the-flowers-delight-and-the-trees-protect/
3) https://www.pressenza.com/2026/05/the-6th-hanseatic-league-of-universities-annual-conference-opens-at-national-chi-nan-university-3rd-of-9-series/. Stand by for the 5th series to the 9th series.
NCNU Association of Indigenous Students render ceremonial songs: The first song, “Bunun Forestry Work Song.”
Meaning of the lyrics: In earlier times, many Bunun people left their hometowns to work elsewhere in order to support their families. This song expresses their longing and homesickness for their homeland. Source: Dr. Yung-Ping Tseng from NCNU
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About the Author:
Dr. Genevieve Balance Kupang is Dean of the Graduate School and International Relations Officer of Baguio Central University, Baguio City, Philippines. She also serves as WURI Historian, Secretary of the World University Network for Innovation Leaders (WUNI-L), and Board Director of the Cordillera Association of International Relations Officers (CAIRO).
A peace educator, applied cosmic anthropologist, and humanist activist, she is a co-author of a finalist book at the 43rd National Book Awards administered by the National Book Development Board of the Philippines, and a contributing writer for Pressenza International Press Agency.
