The AI-Competitive Workforce: Strategies for Thriving Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Invited Speaker 4
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Soukanh Chithpanya is a Laotian scholar specializing in architecture, urban planning, and regional development, who has been making endeavors for thriving AI in higher education. He positions himself at the nexus of digital-creative industries. He received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1991 from the École Supérieur du Batiment and de l’Architecture (ESBA) in Lao PDR and pursued his graduate studies in the field Architectural Engineering at Osaka University from 1998 through 2004 in the Architectural and Urban Morphology Lab where the research focus area is computational geography and computer vision. He subsequently served as Director of the Division of Research and Graduate Studies at the Faculty of Architecture, National University of Laos, where he spearheaded international collaborations, notably the European Commission-funded Asia-Link Project on capacity-building for architectural and urban heritage preservation in different countries in Asia and Europe. Additionally, he contributed to ASEAN+ initiatives, conducting cross-cultural studies on regional identity and heritage as part of broader efforts to foster East Asian socio-cultural integration.
In 2013, Dr. Chithpanya was appointed Director of the Urban Environment Department at Faculty of Architecture, National University of Laos, overseeing undergraduate and graduate programs in urban environmental planning and design. Alongside pedagogical leadership, he directed multidisciplinary consulting teams in formulating urban development plans for municipalities across Lao PDR at multiple scales—from village to provincial levels.
Currently, Dr. Chithpanya serves as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, National University of Laos, and Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Sustainable Urban and Regional Planning (SURP). Trained in computational geometry at Laboratory of Architectural and Urban Morphology and Cybermedia Center, Osaka University (Japan), he employs morphological methodologies to advance urban theory and practice. His recent work integrates geospatial analytics—including Participatory GIS (PGIS), GIS-based Integrated Spatial Planning (ISP), and Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI)—to address regional development challenges.
Dr. Chithpanya’s interdisciplinary scholarship and leadership underscore his commitment to bridging technological innovation in the higher education, urban and regional studies, and development policy research in the region of Southeast Asia and beyond.