ASPAC 컨퍼런스 2024

22 January 2026

​

Dear ASPAC family,

 

Happy new beginnings in an old world! We know that the same challenges exist in this new year and most likely, new challenges will come our way. But what we can change is the dynamics we have with the things within and beyond our control. We can work together more, we can be more dedicated, we can be more creative. Those are the things that are within our control that we can meet this old world with.

 

For starters, we have the ASPAC Conference 2026 coming up on August 19-22! It will be a VERY INDEED kind of conference from the past decades. Your ASPAC EXCO worked hard to come up with very relevant and exciting topics. ON top of that, the format is going to be very different. While registration for Early BIRD for $280 will start in February, we would like to inform you this early about the conference and to prepare to send as many of your team members as you can. This is an ASPAC Conference that will be most effective and relevant to ALL professional levels across our institutions so we would strongly encourage sending your team members from various roles.

 

We have compressed the conference proper into 2 days August 19-20 with Aug 21-22 as "Bonding time" for optional tours. There will be a night for national costume.

 

There will be 12 main tracks we now call SCIENCE EXCHANGE TRACKS (SETs) which will be 3.5 hours each. Please note that reading of a presentation within a SET is limited to only 10 minutes - the rest should be for interactivity (Q and A, games, workshops etc).  EACH SET has an assigned Champion and in our next announcement, we will identify those Champions to whom you can send your proposed pitches to.

 

SET 1: How are  our members embracing tech futures?

Possible subtopics:

• what are the tech futures?

• presentations from tech leaders in ASPAC members like SK, Japan, Australia, Singapore);

• presentations from other ASPAC members who use tech in innovative ways for impact in programs, exhibitions etc?

 

SET 2: How do we design for futures?

Possible subtopics:

• “futures” exhibitions

• “futures” explorations with the public

• Co-designing “futures” with communities

SET 3: How could museums imagine the futures of cities, coastlines, music,   futures or side by side?

Possible topics:

• Music and the science of well-being

• Museums in cities and sustainability

• Museums in coastlines

 

SET 4: What is the future of digital media in or among science centers/museums?

Possible topics:

• What could collaborative digital media look like?

• Give a challenge on what a media campaign would be like knowing the costs of digital media on the brain and on costs of AI to the planet?

 

SET 5: How do we ensure that our science centers/museums remain human-centered in the age of AI?

Possible topics:

• Negative examples (humans at the periphery and not the center)

• How do we evaluate if indeed our AI-powered stuff in our museum is human-centered?

 

SET 6: What are the impactful cases of robotics programs by science centers?

Possible topics:

• Robots helping rural folk

• Robots as “attractions” to visitors to get them in the mood for science exploration

 

SET 7: What does leadership look like in science museum futures?

Possible topics:

• What are the skills that we have discovered no longer hold?

• What are the skills or traits that we now think should be considered?

• What is unique about ASPAC leadership?

• (An intergenerational dialogue here may be useful with the impact of leadership coming NOT from the leaders)

 

SET 8: What are the possible futures of science museum/center ecosystems?

This will need a facilitator and necessarily take on a 3.5 hour workshop with breakout groups that will include the futures of:

• in staffing/finance/

• exhibitions/programs and

• collaborations and partnerships

• And then a presentation of each group with Q and A.

 

SET 9: What are the ways of science engagement that should be dead, buried, worth resurrecting or to keep alive (a cross-section of many cases across member institutions to see if there are patterns or commonalities)

 Possible topics:

• Exhibitions that should be dead, buried, worth resurrecting or to keep alive

• Programs that should be dead, buried, worth resurrecting or to keep alive

• Shows that should be dead, buried, worth resurrecting or to keep alive

• Science museum perspectives  that should be dead, buried, worth resurrecting or to keep alive

​

SET 10: What other uncommon cultural purposes should our facilities serve to reinforce science engagement. This could be breakout groups to come up with a detailed plan of how to carry out this reimagined purposes and each group will present,  (e.g. a reserved time for people to come “unplugged” from their devices and to have genuine conversations or this can be imagined or re-imagined cultural purposes that the participants can come up with together in a workshop).

​

Suggested structure:

• 30 minutes to discuss what “uncommon cultural purpose” could mean

• 1.15 hours for 5 breakout groups to define their choice of “uncommon cultural purpose” and to plan it

• 1.15 presentation of each group (15 minutes each) with Q and A

 

SET 11: Each participant could choose a “persona” of certain futures (they will wear a tag of that persona) and they will approach each other to converse and see what kind of future scenarios are created. 

(This will be like a human library. We would need a curator/s for this.)

 

SET 12: How can museums design for indigenous futures? 

Possible topics:

• What low tech have been found impactful in science engagement?

• What does decolonization of science museums and centers mean to former colonies?

 

We hope this gets you excited enough to plan to attend the ASPAC Conference in BKK on Aug 19-22! We will be in touch for the next steps. 

 

Thank you very much for your time and we hope we can heed each other's encouragement to meet the challenges of this old world with a revitalized spirit and sense of purpose. 

 

Maria Isabel Garcia 
President, Asia Pacific Network of Science and Technology Centers (ASPAC)