Bhutan’s AI Ambassador : Sonam Pelden

Evan Spiegel

Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snap Inc. was one of the speakers at the Bhutan Innovation Forum 2024 at Paro, Pangbisa, Dungkar Dzong. His session delved into how Snap Inc. came to be and during his information sharing, he mentioned, which caught all my senses is, “We have two ears and a mouth, use it in proportion.” And of course he mentioned about this in context of tech entrepreneurship.

Using the two ears and a mouth in proportion is nothing new in the Bhutanese context. I particularly have heard this from parents and every other human being that I know are senior to me have uttered to me this very maxim like advise given the human characteristics that I possess. (Very true with the people who have come to know me recently and those who know me personally). Not exactly in a way Evan put it but with the same essence and the idea.

Ok, putting the ears and the mouth thing into perspective (a personalized one, of course) I then attended the second session for the day, The World of AI and Augmented Reality: Can Bhutan Benefit?

The panelists for the session

This session had famous personalities namely Richard Rothenberg, CEO of Global AI. Nesma Bensalem, Founder and CEO of WeCare Impact, Audrey Low, President of GGIT and our very own Sonam Pelden, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Curioser AI. I am super-proud we have such a woman who is native to Bhutan.

This was the session I really, really put my two ears use. In fact, it was the ears which I really put into use. Perhaps, there is so much that our youngsters and adult alike can learn from this young lady, and no wonder the Bhutan Innovation Forum 2024 has her invited. I was astonished the way she answered the question, let me rephrase it, “What is your perspective on AI with Buddhist values?” Given her intelligence, “the data we feed into, if we do it with Buddhist values in mind, I definitely see a future there.”

With the genius herself 

I told one of my mentors sitting beside me, I am super proud that Sonam Pelden is from Bhutan. Just the thought of a young Bhutanese lady speaking on AI to a large room full of international and national participants is a moment of pride for all of us. I am sure others like me felt the same. I remember two different audience claps in unison for her replies and the ideas she shared. No wonder GMC needs people like her and Mr. Rothenberg reinstated Sonam to be the epitome of AI in Bhutan. My humble opinion about Sonam is, she is our ambassador to AI…Not bad for a country like ours where getting approvals eats up a lot of our time.

More on the Bhutan Innovation Forum 2024 interesting topics next time and for now, I read this on Facebook on my way to the BIF 2024 this morning, the person who wrote this is sometimes funny with his updates and this time he wrote, “Dear travel agents, please dress our Chillips with some decent clothes and not with some shiny ghos and kiras  who look like PP children readying for the school cultural show.”

More next time and thank you for dropping by….Kadrinchey la.