# Event Details - **Event Name**: Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan - **Event Start and End Date**: Tue, 30 Jun, 2026 at 06:00 pm – Tue, 30 Jun, 2026 at 07:30 pm - **Event Description**: A talk about ingenuity, agency, and the remarkable vitality of Buddhist culture in Bhutan today.About this EventThis talk will be held in person in downtown Berkely as well as on Zoom. To access the talk on Zoom, use the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81906267986 This talk offers an on-the-ground report from a recent delegation to Bhutan, where American specialists in digital cultural preservation met with Bhutanese leaders and innovators working to document, modernize, and teach their living Buddhist heritage. Drawing on firsthand encounters from that trip, as well as eight years of experience directing the Buddhist Digital Resource Center, Jann Ronis will highlight concrete examples of communities actively shaping the future of their own traditions — from digitization efforts and seminary curricula to AI tools being developed to support Tibetan language sustainability.These developments are of direct relevance to the growing global community of scholars, practitioners, and students outside Asia whose own engagement with Himalayan Buddhist culture is deeply intertwined with the vitality of these traditions at their source. Rather than a cautionary tale about cultural loss, this is a story about ingenuity, agency, and the remarkable vitality of Buddhist culture in the Himalayan world today.A wine and cheese reception will follow.Jann Ronis is a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism with a PhD from the University of Virginia and a former Postdoc and then Lecturer at UC Berkeley. He recently stepped down from a nearly eight-year tenure as Executive Director of the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), where he led efforts at the intersection of digital humanities and Himalayan Buddhist cultural preservation, including AI initiatives supporting Tibetan linguistic sustainability. From 2018 to 2024, he directed the USAID-funded Support for Ethnic Tibetans program, developing models for culturally-grounded innovation within Tibetan communities inside Tibet. A specialist in Classical Tibetan literature with many years of teaching experience, Jann brings both deep scholarly expertise and extensive on-the-ground experience to his work. He recently joined a delegation of American specialists in digital cultural preservation on a visit to Bhutan, and this talk draws on that experience alongside his years of engagement with the living traditions of the Himalayan Buddhist world. - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/berkeley/thriving-in-transition-stories-of-cultural-innovation-from-bhutan/100001992008054715 - **Event Categories**: fitness, Art, fine-arts, literary-art - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 0 - **Event Highlights**: - Age Limit: all_ages - door_time: 2026-07-01T00:30:00Z - Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes - Location: Mangalam Center - Languages: English ## Ticket Details - **Ticket Price Range**: min: 0, max: 0, currency: USD ## Event venue details - **city**: Berkeley - **state**: CA - **country**: United States - **location**: Mangalam Center - **lat**: 37.868958 - **long**: -122.26952799999998 - **full address**: Mangalam Center, 2018 Allston Way, Berkeley, United States ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events3/banners/fa68932cd514cc01dbc411183310a9cc5bf845c210ab1ac6f6b958a86d56e5c4-rimg-w1200-h600-dc511c26-gmir.jpg?v=1781786226 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan being held? - **A:** Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan takes place on Tue, 30 Jun, 2026 at 06:00 pm to Tue, 30 Jun, 2026 at 07:30 pm at Mangalam Center, 2018 Allston Way, Berkeley, United States. - **Q**: Who is organizing Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan? - **A:** Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan is organized by Mangalam Research Center. ## Structured Data (JSON-LD) ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Event", "name": "Thriving in Transition: Stories of Cultural Innovation from Bhutan", "image": "https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events3/banners/fa68932cd514cc01dbc411183310a9cc5bf845c210ab1ac6f6b958a86d56e5c4-rimg-w1200-h600-dc511c26-gmir.jpg?v=1781786226", "startDate": "2026-06-30", "endDate": "2026-06-30", "url": "https://allevents.in/berkeley/thriving-in-transition-stories-of-cultural-innovation-from-bhutan/100001992008054715", "location": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Mangalam Center", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "2018 Allston Way", "postalCode": "94704", "addressLocality": "Berkeley", "addressRegion": "CA", "addressCountry": "US" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": "37.868958", "longitude": "-122.26952799999998" } }, "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode", "description": "A talk about ingenuity, agency, and the remarkable vitality of Buddhist culture in Bhutan today.", "offers": [ { "@type": "AggregateOffer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-06", "availabilityEnds": "2026-06-30", "validFrom": "2026-09-06", "lowPrice": "0.00", "highPrice": "0.00", "price": "0.00", "url": "https://allevents.in/berkeley/thriving-in-transition-stories-of-cultural-innovation-from-bhutan/100001992008054715" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/SoldOut", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-06", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-09-06", "url": "https://allevents.in/berkeley/thriving-in-transition-stories-of-cultural-innovation-from-bhutan/100001992008054715", "price": 0, "name": "General Admission" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-06", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-09-06", "url": "https://allevents.in/berkeley/thriving-in-transition-stories-of-cultural-innovation-from-bhutan/100001992008054715", "price": 0, "name": "General Admission 2" }, { "@type": "Offer", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "priceCurrency": "USD", "availabilityStarts": "2026-09-06", "availabilityEnds": "", "validFrom": "2026-09-06", "url": "https://allevents.in/berkeley/thriving-in-transition-stories-of-cultural-innovation-from-bhutan/100001992008054715", "price": 0, "name": "Donation" } ], "organizer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Mangalam Research Center", "url": "https://allevents.in/org/mangalam-research-center/22563801", "description": "The vision of Mangalam Buddhist Research Center is to create a body of knowledge that facilitates the translation and transmission of the Buddhist written tradition and classical languages into English. 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