We are all creating a huge amount of data including photos, videos, and text. Unlike in the past when we would have physical copies of photographs, today’s data is temporary and can easily disappear. Niall Firth from MIT Technology Review reminds us that platforms like YouTube and Instagram may not always be around, and if (and when!) that happens, our history and memories could be lost forever. This has happened before with platforms like Geocities and Myspace.

Fortunately, there are people and organizations working on solutions. I find Jack Cushman, the director of Library Innovation Lab @ Harvard Lab, and organizations like Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web to be particularly interesting. They are part of a movement by archivists and historians to ensure that future generations will be able to piece together the story of our generation.

I am excited that TechSoup’s Public Good App House is delving into this area over the next year with a new program to assist galleries, libraries, archives, and museums in adding their archives to the decentralized web. Follow me on LinkedIn for more updates or contact me at eli@techsoup.org.

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