Partnership for Digital Justice: Decolonizing Digital Information

Decolonizing Digital Information in the Global South & in Indigenous Communities

Session Description:

Across the globe, and particularly in the Global South and in under-resourced communities, analog archival assets are rapidly deteriorating, and there are few, if any, scaled efforts to digitalize these assets. There is an urgent need to act for several reasons:

1. Invaluable artifacts and records of history will be lost forever due to physical decay, and we have a limited window to capture these assets.
2. This erosion undermines the foundation of our understanding of the past and hampers future generations' access to a more complete picture of world history, as well as to potential solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges.
3. There is a massive disbalance in the archival information that has been digitalized (and thus widely available), with the Global North and wealthier nations having archived massive amounts of data compared to narrow efforts in less wealthy nations or communities; the selection of information to be digitalized is often being made by historical or current colonial powers.
4. The rise of Artificial Intelligence poses challenges to equitability and inclusivity; aside from the fact that A.I. algorithms can be inherently biased, there is the less-discussed problem that A.I. learns from what is available digitally, and we are now at great risk of perpetuating a skewed and incomplete understanding of the world.
5. The discovery — or rediscovery — of these assets can reframe our understanding of the history of the past and alter the trajectory of our future

The disbalance in digitalization of historical and cultural assets is both a massive and an urgent problem for the planet. But it is also an entirely solvable problem. This session focuses on identifying the core of the problem, ideating on ways to raise awareness and to generate urgency to address it, and a discussion of solutions, including tried and true as well as innovative approaches that the panelist’s would like to see get underway.

Partner Panelists (4):

• Mario Baeza, CEO, Tropix Media
• Joseph McNeil, General Manager, SAGE Development Authority
• Atossa Soltani, Amazon Sacred Headwaters
• TBD

Orchestrator:

• Deirdre White, CEO, PYXERA Global

Key Participant Learning Outcomes

· Gain an understanding of the depth, breadth, and complexity of this problem.

· Gain perspective on the whys and hows of how the challenge has been addressed – or ignored – in different geographies (including specifics of a proof of concept in Cuba and specific preservation approaches from South Africa)

· Gain specific insights on solutions and approaches that can be implemented immediately, and those that require investment over time, as well as the potential roadblocks to implementation.

· Offer specific ways that individuals and organizations across the public, private, social sectors and academia can engage in solving this challenge.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Tzu Chi Center 慈濟大愛人文中心, 229 East 60th Street, New York, United States