Xin Ying: the movements and moments of dance's living archive
In this video, Xin Ying, Principal Dancer with Martha Graham Dance Company, performs an excerpt from “Letter to Nobody,” described as “a love letter to Martha Graham whose influence reaches beyond her physical existence; it is also a love letter to the artists who will never be known by Graham herself but who carry her legacy into the future.”
With generative AI, Martha Graham is extracted from archival dance footage of her landmark work “Letter to the World.” Over 80 years later, Ying and Graham, the “Mother of Modern Dance,” take the stage in a new duet that asks: what does it mean to carry on a legacy? How does dance, a living art form, continue to evolve in a world shaped by unprecedented technologies?
In Ying’s growing oeuvre, she continues to explore historical dance archives with AI and other technology, to honor the legacy of the art form and its artists, and to bring these performances to new audiences. Ying has reimagined one of Graham’s most famous works Lamentation, with In the Folds of Her Purple (2026) as well as Lamentation: Dancing the Archive (2025). Last year, Ying also debuted the MarthaBot, a conversational AI archive trained on Graham’s writings, interviews, and the oral histories of generations of the company’s dancers.
Xin Ying will be joining Serica as a panelist at the 2026 AAPI Trailblazers Conference: Owning Our Stories in the Age of AI. Reserve your tickets now!
Two Questions with Lily Xu, Global Program Lead at AWS Startups
At Amazon Web Services (AWS), Lily Xu builds global programs that accelerate startup growth and strengthen ecosystem connections. After exiting her own startup, she joined Sephora to build its accelerator program for beauty founders, before moving to AWS Startup, where she leads global startup and AI ecosystem initiatives. Her programs have supported over 2000 startups around the world. Focusing on building founder programs, partnerships, corporate accelerators, and high-impact communities, Xu helps both founders and investors build opportunities, visibility, and growth.
1. What do founders need most right now?
Honestly? Access. And I don’t just mean money. I mean access to knowledge, to networks, to customers, to the right opportunities.
I’ve spent most of my career working with founders, a lot of them from underrepresented backgrounds, and over and over I’ve watched really talented people struggle. It’s not because their ideas weren’t good. It’s because they didn’t have the right people or resources around them.
That’s why AI excites me so much. It can open up entrepreneurship in a way we’ve never seen. Something that used to take a whole team of engineers, marketers, and analysts, one founder can now do with AI. They can prototype an idea, size up a market, and start reaching customers faster and for a fraction of the cost.
But here’s the catch. AI makes it easier to build a company. It doesn’t automatically make it easier to get opportunities. That’s where community comes in, and I think it matters even more now. AI gives you access to intelligence. Community gives you access to trust, to mentors, and to people who’ll actually open doors for you.
So when I picture the future, I see both working together. AI expands what founders can build, and community expands what they can achieve.
2. What new founders, businesses, or initiatives using AI excite you?
The one I keep coming back to is personal AI assistants. Think OpenAI’s Dots, Meta’s Muse, and Instinct.
What’s happening is a real shift. AI is going from a tool you open and type into, to more of a partner. It knows your goals, remembers what matters to you, and actually takes action for you. The part I love is that this makes something that’s always been a luxury available to almost everyone: personal support.
Just think about how much of your week goes to scheduling, researching decisions, handling logistics, and following up on things. Now imagine having your own chief of staff who knows your priorities and takes a lot of that off your plate. I think about founders a lot here. They’re wearing ten hats at once, and very often their scarcest resource isn’t money. It’s time and focus.
It goes way beyond startups, though. If you’re a working parent, a small business owner, or someone going through a big life change, having that kind of help could give you real time back for the things that matter.
So for me, the promise of personal AI isn’t really about productivity. It’s about giving more people the support, the time, and the freedom to go after what they want.
We’re thrilled to have Lily Xu as our keynote lunch speaker at our 2026 AAPI Trailblazers Conference! Read below for her thoughts on how AI is changing the present and the future for founders — and join us on November 4 to hear more!
Shelly Xu: making zero waste design a reality
Around the world, the vast majority of fashion brands — from major retail brands, independent labels, and luxury houses — rely on standard “cut and sew” manufacturing to produce their garments. Large bolts of fabric are cut into individual pattern pieces, which are then sewn together to create the final garment.
However, as these pattern pieces are cut, the scraps of fabric left behind eventually result in massive mounds of waste. It’s estimated that 10-15% of fabric in garment production is lost as these offcuts on the cutting room floor.
Shelly Xu, CEO of SXD (Shelly Xu Design), is looking to change that with her zero waste design fashion technology.
Starting with the leftover or “waste” fabric from traditional processes, SXD’s patented AI platform optimizes how pattern pieces are cut and sewn to create zero waste designs.
These designs can be instantly scaled to accommodate different sizes, styles, and specifications, eliminating what would otherwise be weeks or months of additional work.
Beyond the company’s own apparel, SXD’s clients and collaborators include allbirds, Apple, Ford, and more. Harvard, her alma mater, recently released a zero-waste merchandise collection in collaboration with SXD.
While at Harvard Business School, Xu won the 2021 New Venture Competition; her design innovation has also racked up more than a dozen prizes from MIT Solve, AWS, the H&M Foundation, and more. Other design industries are also starting to take notice: SXD is partnering with manufacturers in the automotive industry to create zero-waste car components with their SXD AI™ technology.
Shelly Xu will be joining Serica as a panelist at the 2026 AAPI Trailblazers Conference: Owning Our Stories in the Age of AI. Come join us on November 4!
