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*This story originally appeared in the Queen's Alumni Review.

Rignam Wangkhang’s father was a pioneer in a new land, and now the son is a pioneer in another new land – the rapidly expanding frontier of artificial intelligence.

In late 2024, Mr. Wangkhang, Artsci’13, was named CBC’s first adviser of AI projects.

“It’s to understand what will work for CBC and our audiences, and to guide our strategy on responsible and ethical use of AI,” he says. “AI has become political now, for better or worse, because of how profoundly the change is happening. Everybody has different stances on what to do right and how we should be resisting or working or collaborating. I feel we should try to find a way to work with it so … we can have some agency and say, ‘Here’s how we would like to use it.’”

His father immigrated to Belleville, Ont., from Tibet (via India) in 1971, one of two Tibetans on the flight. “I don’t know who stepped off the plane first, but there were two guys,” Mr. Wangkhang says.

The family opened a Tibetan restaurant in Belleville and the city’s Tibetan population grew. Through both, Mr. Wangkhang learned the importance of community. He chose Queen’s because it was close to that community, and to his mother (his father died when he was 10). 
“Queen’s was a transformational experience, from the people I met, [and] the professors, to the courses I took to expand my knowledge and understanding of the world … I was very active in clubs and [they] provided me with an understanding of different causes and different issues that people cared about. It allowed me to have more confidence in who I was and what I believed in, and to have that conviction to graduate and take on the world.”

Continue reading the full story on the Queen's Alumni Review.