Woodenfish Forum on Buddhism & New Technology a Success in Shanghai

On June 11, 2017, a three-day International Woodenfish Forum, "Shanghai Buddhism and New Technology Conference" kicked off at Intercontinental Shanghai Puxi hotel. Over one hundred experts, scientists, and artists from around the globe specialized in the studies of Buddhism, Sinology, Theology, and Psychology participated in the event and delivered talks about their work. For student scholars, relevant youth forums were held each evening. Young rising talent thus could also engage in spreading the ideas of collaboration between Buddhism and Science. The forum covered a wide variety of topics and themes, including artificial intelligence, meditation, study of consciousness, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, IT, music, and education. Intellectuals from around the world took the stage to make their ideas heard, and these speakers represented the top talent from domestic and international fields: famous scientist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mr. Qingshi Zhu; vice chairman of Chinese National School Sports Robot League, Jian Wang, PhD.; co-founder of M-Lab--Multimedia Entrepreneurial Research, Education and Creative Laboratory--at

Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Gino Yu, PhD.; technical strategy consultant at Microsoft China, Mr. Tong Luo among others. Other participants include Dr. Jay Michaelson, author of six books and many articles on religion and law; Owen Harris, co-developer of Deep VR; Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris, internationally renowned biologist and futurist; Dr. Philip Peake, one of the leading scholars who worked on the famous Marshmallow Test at Stanford; Robin Arnott, developer of the game Deep Sea. The conference w

as an optimal opportunity for Buddhism and science to meet, communicate, and exchange ideas. Woodenfish Forum values such interaction as the bridge between Eastern and Western culture, and obviously there will be similar occasions like this in the future! Let us be thrilled for another meeting next year and another, even greater, intersections of ideas. "I believe that Buddhism and science are not at odds with each other, but instead they are complementary and can allow benevolent exchanges and cooperations," Woodenfish founder, Venerable Dr. Yifa declared. This statement is not only the main idea of this conference, but also the reason why Woodenfish launched itself in the first place.