Imagining Heritage in the Digital Dimension

Kat Borlongan is originally from the Philippines. Today she is a leading figure in the French start-up landscape. An entrepreneur and former director of La French Tech in France, she is committed to leveraging innovation and ideas to benefit communities and to improve their lives. La French Tech is a government-led mission built to bolster France’s start-up ecosystem; the only country to have a national start-up strategy.

Borlongan worked to raise the profile of start-ups and advocate for a more inclusive tech industry. She is also a founding member of Scale-Up Europe, an initiative launched by President Macron with the support of the European Commission and other Member States. She is currently the Chief Impact Officer at Contentsquare, a global company in digital experience analytics. Since November 2021, Borlongan is a member of the European Innovation Council. She also co-founded Five by Five, an open innovation consulting agency that addresses social inequalities through technology, which joined forces with the Ville de Paris to launch the Resilient Paris Innovation Fellowship, imagining solutions to climate change and social exclusion.

Chance Coughenour is an American digital archaeologist and head of preservation at Google Arts & Culture. Having studied computing engineering, history, archaeology, and 3D modelling and mapping, he is dedicated to digitally preserving and democratizing access to cultural heritage. In 2015, following the destruction of the Mosul Cultural Museum, he started ‘Project Mosul’ (later ‘Rekrei’), a crowdsourcing project to collect photographs of destroyed artefacts to digitally reconstruct lost heritage into a single 3D image. The initiative was endorsed by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of Iraq, which stated: “the heritage of Iraq isn’t only for the Iraqis, this is our shared, global heritage.”

His work, ‘the Lion of Mosul’, was 3D printed and displayed in the Mosul Museum of the original. Its replica is currently on display in London’s Imperial War Museum. The Economist Media Lab was invited to collaborate in the creation of a virtual museum and a unique exhibition space at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam in November 2015. As head of preservation at Google Arts & Culture, Coughenour is committed to reclaiming and promoting antiquities, and coordinating global preservation efforts by employing new technologies. He leads documentation and dissemination projects on cultural heritage using emerging technologies, including machine learning, image detection and 3D technology. Other projects include ‘Mali Magic’, ‘Project Mosul’ and ‘Woolaroo’.

Refik Anadol is an internationally celebrated Turkish-American new media artist and designer known for data-driven machine learning algorithms that create abstract environments. He is also a lecturer for UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts.

Anadol’s site-specific audio/visual performances have been featured in iconic venues, such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. He is intrigued by the ways in which machine intelligence allows for a new aesthetic technique to create immersive environments that offer a dynamic perception of space. His studio, Refik Anadol Studio and RAS LAB, is centred around developing trailblazing approaches to data narratives and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as addressing the challenges and possibilities of ubiquitous computing. Using AI and data as material to create mesmerizing visuals, he refers to them as ‘data sculptures’ and ‘data paintings’, as well as immersive installations. This post-digital architecture redefines the functionalities of both interior and exterior architectural elements, inviting his audience to imagine alternative realities.

Anab Jain is an Indian designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator, and co-founder and director of a multi-award winning design studio, Superflux. Her work on design, innovation, emerging technologies and complex futures is recognized internationally. Superflux works at the intersection of the climate crisis, politics and AI to respond to humanity’s current challenges. It received the Design Studio of the Year Award in 2021 in recognition of its contribution to future design with a committed social mission. Jain was also named one of 25 creative leaders of the future by FormaFantasma and for Wallpaper’s 25th Anniversary Issue ‘5x5’ project.

Jain’s work has been exhibited at MoMA New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum of China, Vitra Design Museum, Tate Modern and Science Gallery Dublin. She has spoken at TED, MIT Media Lab and MoMA’s first design summit ‘Knotty Objects’. She is also a TED Fellow. Her recent talks include ‘Why we need to imagine Different Futures’, which had around 1.8 M views, ‘More-Than Human Centred Design’, ‘Design for the New Normal’, ‘Valley of the Meatpuppets’, and ‘How Will We Live’.

Abeer Abu Ghaith is a Palestinian entrepreneur and social activist. One of the first female high-tech entrepreneurs in Palestine, Ghaith has tirelessly worked to use technology to provide employment opportunities to people living in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. She is the founder and CEO of MENA Alliances Group Inc., an international business providing high-quality and fully localized business and technology solutions, while also creating economic opportunities for talents in the region. It was selected as ‘Best Social Impact Company’ in the METKITE competition in Italy. She is also a co-founder of StayLinked, a company that acts as a talent broker between skilled Palestinian freelancers and businesses.

Ghaith was named one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Arab Women in 2014 and 2015. She also received the Best Technology Enabler and Facilitator Award presented by Women in Technology Awards 2014. She was featured as the personality of the month for innovation in 2014 in This Week in Palestine magazine. Ghaith firmly believes that knowledge and experience of information and communication technology (ICT) empowers women and youth in society.

Vít Šisler is a Czechian researcher, writer, game designer and assistant professor of new media studies at Charles University in Prague. He is interested in educational simulations, culture, and digital media in the Middle East. Šisler designed the award-winning video game ‘Attentat 1942’, a unique historical narrative video game that explores World War II through the eyes of survivors. The game received the ‘Most Amazing Game’ by A MAZE Berlin in 2018 and was selected as a finalist for the Apple Design Awards in the category ‘Social Impact’ in 2021.

Šisler has published extensively on media, communications and digital culture, including: Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion; Playing cultural memory: Framing history in Call of Duty: Black Ops and Czechoslovakia 38-39: Assassination; and Procedural religion: Methodological reflections on studying religion in video games. As a senior game designer at Charles Games, he recently published the follow-up game, ‘Svoboda 1945: Liberation’ in 2021, which also received worldwide recognition.

Rachel Sibande is a Malawian digital and data development specialist and social entrepreneur in the technology and energy spheres. Her experience in managing socially impactful projects in technology, big data, governance and entrepreneurship is recognized worldwide. Sibande established mHub in 2013, Malawi’s first technology hub and incubator for emerging entrepreneurs.

Her company is dedicated to developing innovative technology solutions and accelerating the emergence of entrepreneurs with access to finance and investment support. The mHub has trained over 40,000 youths, equipping them with business and technology skills, and it has contributed to creating over 900 jobs so far. Sibande is committed to empowering women and youth to gain digital skills.

She is the recipient of the Forbes Woman Africa Gen Y Award in 2019. She was also named as one of Forbes’ most promising young entrepreneurs in 2016 and a New Wealth Creator in 2019. She is also an alumna of the State Department’s flagship Young African Leaders Initiative. She currently serves as a senior programme director at the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) at the United Nations Foundation where she helps digital transformation and big data for development models in Africa.

Johanna Figueira is a Venezuelan entrepreneur and digital marketer. She is dedicated to contributing to her home country and its communities, and she is a firm believer in the power of digital communities and technology for social change. She is one of the co-organizers of Code for Venezuela, an organization that aspires to transform Venezuela by using technology and innovation. Figueira and her team created successful projects like ‘MediTweet’ and ‘Blackout Tracker’ that provided solutions required by communities in Venezuela. MediTweet, for example, is an intelligent Twitter bot that connects seekers and sellers of specific medicines using hashtags and location data. Figueira participated in a Ted Talk, ’Simple, effective tech to connect communities in crisis’, which gained 2M views. In her talk, she presents the initiatives that Code for Venezuela spearheaded, emphasizing the importance of sharing knowledge and professional skills to bring hope to the community. Figueira currently works as a social community marketing manager at Meta. She also established Retiqueta, an online marketplace for buying and selling second-hand clothing in Venezuela.

Max Tegmark is a Swedish-American cosmologist, physicist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He uses physics-based techniques to better understand biological cognitive systems, artificial intelligence (AI) and cosmology.

His current research focuses on the interface between physics, AI and neuroscience. He combines theoretical work with new measurements to place constraints on cosmological models and their free parameters, often in collaboration with experimentalists. Tegmark is a board member of the Future of Life Institute and founder of the Foundational Questions Institute, an independent non-profit with the goal of maximizing the benefits of technology and reducing its associated risks.

Tegmark is the author of over 200 publications and is a leading advocate for research on AI safety. His bestselling book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence focuses on emerging technology, such as artificial general intelligence, which someday may be able redesign its own hardware and internal structure. Tegmark has featured in dozens of science documentaries and received numerous awards for his research. His work with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) on galaxy clustering shared first prize in Science magazine’s ’Breakthrough of the Year’ in 2003.

Tino Sehgal is one of the most celebrated artists of his generation renowned for his performance pieces that challenge excessive material productions in the art world and beyond. He is the winner of the 55th Venice Biennale Golden Lion prize (2013). True to his ecological politics, Sehgal rejects the production of physical objects and the excessive proliferation of goods in Western society. Instead, he uses ‘constructed situations’ animated through references to art history and the participation of interpreters.

Sehgal trains interpreters to approach museum and gallery visitors with a comment or a question to engage them, not just in talk but in performance. Having studied dance and economics, Sehgal considers visual art to be a microcosm of our economic reality, as both centre on the production of goods and their circulation. He is also known for the philosophical practice of refusing documentation of his work through photographs, film or video; mediums that would reify his work's ephemeral situations and result in ancillary material products.

Sehgal was the youngest artist to represent Germany at the 51st Venice Biennale (2005). Aged 35, he became the youngest artist granted a solo show in the Guggenheim Museum’s New York rotunda (2010). His This Progress (2010) was the first live work to be acquired by the Guggenheim Museum. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2013 following his Turbine Hall commission in the Tate Modern in London.

Jean-Michel Jarre is a highly celebrated French musician, composer, performer and producer. He is known as the ‘godfather of electronic music’ and a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and for his achievements in harmonizing music and lighting. Jarre deeply reflects on technology as well as nature for the future of our planet. In 2017, he was honoured with the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.

Jarre’s commitment to harnessing technological trends for public access has distinguished him for first-time achievements, such as his Millennium concert in Egypt in 2000, the first concert ever to be live-streamed on the internet. He was also the first to release an entire album in 5.1 surround sound and the first artist to use 3D audio technology for music.

Jarre is a three-time Guinness world record holder for the largest outdoor performance. He was also the first Western musician to be officially invited to perform in the People's Republic of China, and he holds the world record for the largest ever audience at an outdoor event for his Moscow concert on 6 September 1997, which was attended by 3.5 million people. His album Oxygène sold over 18 million copies. He was also appointed as UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1993, and he is a spokesperson for Environment and Education. In 2021, he received the Insignia of Commander to the Legion of Honour.

Ethel D. Cofie is a Ghanaian entrepreneur, CEO and founder of EDEL Technology Consulting, an information technology (IT) consulting company that develops strategies for building IT software and applications. Her company was named IT Consulting Firm of the Year by the Telecoms and IT Industry in Ghana in 2017. Cofie is a leading and influential figure in IT and for empowering women in Africa. She is also on the Advisory Board of Ghana’s Vice President where she helps design a digital strategy for Ghana.

She is the founder of Women in Tech Africa (WiTA), Africa’s largest ‘women in tech’ group with members in over 30 African countries and across the diaspora. She also created Women in Tech Week, a global event that brings together women in technology since 2016. Cofie joined Worldreader’s Ghana Board of Directors to advance digital literacy among children in West Africa. She contributes to e-reading programmes in schools and libraries throughout West Africa, aiming to impact the lives of over 100,000 students and their families. Cofie is a Mandela Washington Fellow of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). She was named one of the top 5 women impacting IT in Africa and won the Glitz Africa Ghana Women of the Year Honours in 2020. She was also shortlisted for the United Nations GEM Tech Award in 2014 with her thoughts on innovation in emerging markets.