K-PAI

Silicon Valley Privacy-Preserving AI Forum

Yes, we ARE holding the 2025 K-PAI Best Ownership Award at the end of this year! – We don’t know exactly when or how yet! ^^

K-PAI has become one of the most famous and popular forums in Silicon Valley. Considering that we started just a year ago, this is an amazing accomplishment. When we first searched for sponsors for the January Forum, we thought there might be some chance of securing sponsorship—perhaps for dinner after a year if we did things right. However, it only took a few months to hear from our first voluntary sponsor, LG Electronics Silicon Valley! (Thank you, LG Electronics!) Then came KOTRA, followed by the renowned Altos Ventures! (Their definition of a luxury sushi buffet was totally different from mine! ^^) Then Erudio Bio, Inc., UClone, and MangoBoost, to name a few!

As we witnessed at the historic September 2025 Forum, the historic perpetual partnership between K-PAI and KOTRA Silicon Valley in the form of a Strategic Alliance came so unexpectedly. I cannot find the proper words to describe my excitement, sense of achievement, and feeling of being recognized among the great talents in Silicon Valley. When Haeyun Kim and Oh Hyoung Kwon of KOTRA told me that witnessing this naturally and organically growing organization was a quite amazing and pleasant experience, I was overwhelmed. Yes, they wanted not just a one-time collaboration, but a perpetual partnership! My feelings were simply indescribable!

Now, for the first half of 2026, we will co-host FOUR of our six forums with K-BioX, K-ASIC, KOTRA Silicon Valley, and the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in San Francisco! :) Moreover, sponsorship for all SIX months has been secured! Isn’t this amazing?

However, I know that without K-PAI members’ help and devotion, NONE of this would have been possible! So, as a token of appreciation for your sacrifice, devotion, and selfless enthusiasm—not for yourselves, but for others— we want to host the K-PAI Best Awards Ceremony!

But then … how do we nominate people? Like this!

Please send me your recommendations for nominations to sunghee.yun@gmail.com or via KakaoTalk (KakaoTalk ID: shoptyun)!

Let’s do this!

Proper recognition and appreciation should follow outstanding devotion and sacrifice!

Sunghee recommends MiSook!

MiSook showed tremendous confidence and dedication in arranging and organizing the August 2025 Forum, making it possible to invite James Rhee, the author of Red Helicopter. I had a pre-planning meeting with her (along with Jennifer and other amazing women) at Paris Baguette in Cupertino one day. During those three full hours, we brainstormed many great ideas, including Jennifer introducing the Red Helicopter platform to attendees at the K-PAI Forum. MiSook then followed up with countless details. Coincidentally, I was going through the busiest time ever with Erudio Bio, Inc. and founding a new company, Erudio Bio Korea, Inc., while traveling back and forth between the US and Korea and appealing to the Gates Foundation at the same time. I couldn’t dedicate much time to the planning, so without MiSook’s enthusiastic devotion, her belief and confidence in humanity, and her conviction that technology should exist for humans—not the other way around— none of this would have been possible.

The second remote meeting happened during my business trip to New York. I vividly remember syncing with James while Jennifer was driving near Yale, MiSook was on the West Coast, and I was in Manhattan. We enjoyed discussing which subjects James should present at the August 2025 Forum and how we could effectively convey his amazing messages.

MiSook also helped find accommodation for James during his Silicon Valley visit for the K-PAI Forum and drove him back and forth from the airport to all his destinations! She even arranged a meeting with Prof. GiWook Shin at Stanford University, a renowned professor, which I also attended. MiSook seemed determined to maximize this opportunity of James visiting the Bay Area! We had an amazingly productive and fruitful conversation. I saw tremendous potential for future synergy between them in making this world a better place!

MiSook is one of those people I truly, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, want to work with as a K-PAI Committee Member!

For the aforementioned reasons, I strongly recommend MiSook for the 2025 K-PAI Best Ownership Award nomination!

Sunghee recommends Daniel Huh!

I didn’t expect—or rather, didn’t dare hope for—much from Daniel when we met for coffee to brainstorm and discuss the possibility of Daniel joining the September 2025 Forum Program Committee. I vividly remember talking about how difficult it would be to find good speakers on the topic of energy! Yes, energy has become an increasingly important topic, ironically with the advent of ChatGPT in 2022 (refer to my blog post about critical energy issues incurred by the new AI era represented by LLMs), but for some reason, it’s not easy to find Korean-speaking speakers in this field! (I thought that if only we relaxed the language restriction, K-PAI would be far more impactful!)

But at the September 2025 Forum, which took place three months after that initial meeting, Daniel created a miracle. Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR amazing, perfectly suited speakers stood at the podium of KOTRA’s Alaska Auditorium, where the historic strategic alliance between K-PAI and KOTRA Silicon Valley opened the Forum!

However, I knew it wasn’t so much a miracle. Daniel spent tremendous effort with amazing enthusiasm and energy to find those four speakers over the entire three months! He demonstrated great leadership, followership, and devotion to this honorable cause.

I thought to myself that this is the epitome of exemplification. He was more than a K-PAI Committee member. I sometimes felt ashamed because I couldn’t match his level of devotion and sacrifice! I thought, “Ah, thanks to these unseen devotions and efforts, K-PAI has become what it is today, and because of this, it will flourish even more!”

Daniel is one of those people I truly, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, want to work with as a K-PAI Committee Member!

For the aforementioned reasons, I once again strongly recommend Daniel for the 2025 K-PAI Best Ownership Award nomination (just as strongly as I recommend MiSook!)!