Chao Tayiana Maina

Chao Tayiana Maina (born 1993) is a Kenyan historian and digital heritage specialist. She is the founder and director of African Digital Heritage, a non-profit in Kenya that seeks to encourage a more critical, holistic and knowledge-based approach to digital solutions within African heritage. She is also a co-founder of the Museum of British Colonialism, a trans-national volunteer collective challenging British colonialism myths and elevating underrepresented voices globally. Quotes For me, history is both a restorative and revolutionary act. A communion with my ancestors and a constant dialogue with the realities of my present. I believe that the work of technology is not just to build futures, but to help us radically re-imagine, redefine and restore African pasts. Digital Heritage (DH) gives us the means to translate history into mediums and languages that history has not been interpreted before. DH can translate information for different audiences, particularly those who have either been left out of the historical narrative or those never given the agency to define their histories. DH gives the power of narrative back to audiences, ordinary people, and creators – countering the dominant narratives that the institutionalisation of history through colonialism, the museum sector, and the publishing sector had created. These narratives, even though wrong, have become cemented in time. After all, they have been repeated over and over again for so many years! Digital heritage is not just a matter of digital access, it is a matter of digital representation, of digital equality online. It’s a matter of access to narratives that represent you. It’s a matter of artificial intelligence, having data sets that are not inherently white and inherently biased. Technology can either be used to further these narratives by replicating them online and entrenching them further in digital spaces; or we have an opportunity to push back against these narratives, refuse them, change them, and actively imagine other alternatives to our heritage and history. External links Category:historians from Kenya Category:Living people Category:1993 births