Conference Programme & Detailed Schedule
Explore the DTI Prague 2026 programme below.
Start with the Programme at a Glance for a quick overview of the three conference days, or scroll down to the
for all sessions, speakers, presentation titles and timings.
Digitise –
From Digitisation to Transformation
18 November
Teresian Hall/Main Stage
Wednesday
10:00–12:00
Registration & Arrival
12:00–12:20
Opening Impulse
12:20–12:50
Welcome Round Table of DTI Alliance Partners
13:00-14:10
Session 1
Scaling Digitisation: From Shelf to Data
14:35-16:05
Session 2
Before It Is Lost: Digitising and Safeguarding Archives at Risk
16:30-17:05
DTI Lightning Stage – DIGITISE! Projects Around the World
17:10-18:25
Session 3
Trusting the Digital Archive
18:25-19:20
Open Floor /
Speakers’ corner
Transform –
From Archives to Intelligent Data
19 November
Teresian Hall/Main Stage
Thursday
9:00-10:25
Session 4
AI in the Archive: From Experiments to Practice
10:50-12:00
Session 5
Beyond Search: New Ways into Archives
12:00–13:30
Lunch
13:30-14:50
Session 6
Archives, Crisis and Resilience
15:15-15:50
DTI Lightning Stage – TRANSFORM! Experiments, Tools & New Approaches
15:50-16:35
DTI Forum – From Conference to Collaboration: What should we do together?
17:00-18:20
Session 7
Rethinking the Digital Archivist
18:20-19:00
Open Floor /
Speakers’ corner
Inspire –
From Collections to Communities
20 November
Teresian Hall/Main Stage
Friday
8:40-9:00
Morning Reflection: From Transformation to Inspiration
9:00-10:15
Session 8
Whose Memory? Archives and People
10:35-11:50
Session 9
From Collections to Communities
11:55-12:20
From Ideas to Action – Six Ideas from the DTI Forum – Closing of conference
All times are local time in Prague (CET). Programme subject to change.
Wednesday — 18 November
DIGITISE – From Digitisation to TransformationWelcome words
Milan Vojáček (National Archives of the Czech Republic/CZ)
Opening impulse
Dean Serrentino (Historiq/US)
Amplifying the Archivist: 10x Faster Arrangement and Description Through Archivist-Centered Technology
Welcome Round Table of DTI Alliance Partners (reflecting on opening impulse)
Josée Kirps (ICA), Mark Bragg (FamilySearch), Harry Verwayen (Europena), Pernille Fjoran (AsF), Andy Stauder (Read Coop), Birgit Kibal (ICARUS)
Session 1 – Scaling Digitisation: From Shelf to Data
Featured impulse
Daniel Gullo (The Malta Study Center at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library/US)
Digitizing Complexity and Scale in the Archives of the Priory of Pisa at the State Archives of Florence
Presentation
Frank Owen (Max Communictations/GB)
From Shelf to Search: AI-Assisted Digitisation Pipelines for Granular Digital Archives
Presentation
Catherine Cosgrove (Findmypast/The British Newspaper Archive/GB)
Beyond Digitisation: Building and Sustaining the British Newspaper Archive
Presentation
Alexander Boix (Archive of Social Democracy/DE)
Beyond the Scan: Quality Assurance and Preservation of Digitized Audiovisual Materials
Panel discussion
What does digitisation at scale really require?
Session 2 – Before It Is Lost: Digitising and Safeguarding Archives at Risk
Featured impulse
Pernille Fjoran (Archivists without Borders/NO)
Who gets to be digital? Inequalities in the digital transformation of archives
Presentation
Jessica Ramirez Mendoza & Adnan Sose (International Committee of the Red Cross/CH)
Digitization in the Humanitarian Space: An ICRC Perspective
Presentation
Saman Quraishi (CEPT University, CEPT Archives/IN)
Digitisation by Improvisation: Jugaad, Labour, and Learning in Architectural Archives
Presentation
Thomas Hengst (FamilySearch/DE)
It´s not just about genealogy! Safeguarding archival heritage around the globe
Presentation
Francis G. Mwangi (Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service/KE)
Kenya – Digitizing Africa’s Documentary Heritage: The Murumbi Africana Collection
Moderated discussion
What must we digitise before it is too late?
Inspirations From Digital and Distant Diplomatics Panel by Georg Vogeler
Eight short talks explore how digitisation and digital methods are opening up new possibilities for the study of historical documents. Seven contributions showcase research drawing on the rapidly growing Monasterium.net collection, presenting innovative tools for handwritten text recognition, visual analysis, text reuse detection, automatic annotation and geographical exploration. Through concrete examples, the speakers demonstrate how AI-supported methods can reveal previously hidden connections between documents, scribes, places and documentary traditions. These contributions feature Anguelos Nicolaou, Nicolas Renet, Tamás Kovács, Thea Schaaf, Niklas Tscherne, Florian Atzenhofer-Baumgartner. Complementing these perspectives, Marco Ciampo and Christian Marcantonio turn to the preservation and digitisation of documentary heritage with their presentation, “A Collection That Outlived the Flames: Digitising Medieval and Modern Parchments at the State Archives of Naples.”DTI Lightning Stage – DIGITISE! Projects Around the World – 10 × 3-minute lightning talks
Petria de Vaal (De Vaal & De Vaal Information Brokers/ZA)
The “selection” challenge in South Africa when planning to digitise
Gabriela Manuli (International Press Institute/ARG)
IPI digitises 75 years of press freedom history
Francis Mwangi (The Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service/KE)
From Paper to Digital: Lessons from the Digital Transformation Journey at the Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service
Codruta Mihailovici (National Archives of Romania/RO)
Memory on Glass: From Vision to Digital Access – Digitising the Glass Plate Negative Collection of the National Archives of Romania
Emerson Bryan (Cayman Islands National Archive/KY)
From Paper to Public Value: The Experience of Digitizing Public Records in Barbados
Domagoj Cicko (State archives in Zagreb/HR)
Coping with construction documentation – challenges and possibilities
Miklós Zsámboki (Blinken OSA Archivum (at Central European University/HU)
The Teenager Party Digitization Project: Impetus for Self-Reflection?
T. Csaba Reisz (National Archives of Hungary/HU)
The Cadastral Map: An Overlooked Missing Bridge in the Georeferencing of Historical Maps
Letizia Dalle Vedove (Fondazione Bruno Kessler/IT)
Mapping Landscape Transformations: A Deep Learning Pipeline for Vectorising Historical Land Use from the Austrian Cadastre of Trentino
Ulrike Krippner (BOKU University, Vienna/AT) & Douglas Strandberg (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences/SE)
Onboarding Landscape Architecture Archives to the Cultural Heritage Cloud: A Networked Approach to Digital Transformation
Flora Orthmayr (Budapest City Archives/HU)
Plan Beyond the Project
Workshop 1 – Monasterium Next Generation – Hands-on on a AI supported research environment of medieval charters by Georg Vogeler
Discover the next generation of Monasterium.net through a guided, hands-on introduction to its new AI-supported research environment. Participants will explore more than 750,000 medieval charters using advanced search, filtering, handwritten text recognition, georeferencing and visual or textual similarity tools. After the introduction, they can experiment with sample tasks or pursue their own research questions with support from the DiDip project team: Anguelos Nicolaou, Nicolas Renet, Tamás Kovács, Thea Schaaf, Niklas Tscherne, Florian Atzenhofer-Baumgartner.Short break
Session 3 – Trusting the Digital Archive
Featured impulse
Justin Simpson & Kelly Stewart (Artefactual Systems/GB/CA)
From the Trusted Custodian to the Untrusted Chain: Authenticity Under Zero Trust
Presentation
Francesco Zambonin & Pablo Toussaint (Authentic Memory/DE)
Protecting Truth in a Synthetic Age: Why Every Archive Must Anchor Authenticity Now
Presentation
Vanessa Rebernig (Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (DÖW)/AT)
Presenting Sensitive Archival Materials Online
Presentation
Yelyzaveta Terentieva (University of Amsterdam/NL)
From Formal Transparency to Practical Interpretability: WOOLens
Presentation
Mark Barnekow (Joseph Glasco Charitable Foundation/US)
Who Will AI Remember? Rebuilding Joseph Glasco’s Knowledge Graph
Panel discussion
Can we still trust what we see?
Workshop 1 – Part 2
Open floor / speakers’ corner
Meet & Greet with the speakers of the day – an opportunity for individual questions and informal exchange.
ICARUS Companies Market
ICARUS company partners present updatesBridging Worlds by Choir Imbus
Reception
Thursday — 19 November
TRANSFORM — From Archives to Intelligent DataSession 4 – AI in the Archive: From Experiments to Practice
Featured impulse
Sibel Karakoc & Kent Schull (SUNY Binghamton University/US)
From Ottoman Archives to Digital Archives: Artificial Intelligence, Accessibility, and the Future of Ottoman Historical Research
Presentation
Andy Stauder (READ-COOP SCE/AT)
The Best of Both Worlds for Genealogy: Combining Light-weight, Collaborative, Non-profit AI models with ChatGPT & Co.
Presentation
Tomáš Musil (Masarykuv ústav a Archiv AV CR, v. v. i./CZ)
From Archival Documents to Connected Historical Data
Presentation
Celia Iglesias Caballero & Laura Esparza Sainz (National Archives of Spain. Ministry of Culture/ES)
From AI Projects to Governance: Inter-administrative Cooperation in Spanish Archives
Presentation
Letizia Dalle Vedove (Fondazione Bruno Kessler/IT)
Mapping Landscape Transformations: A Deep Learning Pipeline for Vectorising Historical Land Use from the Austrian Cadastre of Trentino
Discussion
From AI experiments to archival practice
Workshop 2 – ARCHION (sponsored)
How can artificial intelligence make millions of handwritten church records accessible without weakening source criticism? This workshop presents ARCHION’s new Handwritten Text Recognition service, which opens up approximately 32 million digitised images from participating archives. Participants will discover its dual approach—systematic transcription of key collections and on-demand processing of individual records—and discuss the opportunities and challenges of integrating AI into an authentic archival environment.Session 5 – Beyond Search: New Ways into Archives
Featured impulse
David Haskiya (Riksarkivet – Swedish National Archives/SE)
Beyond Search: AI Research Assistants and the Future of Archival Inquiry
Presentation
Álvaro Ruiz Cuevas (Independent professional/FR)
Rethinking Access to Archives with Cartographic Interfaces
Presentation
Giorgi Sophromadze (National Archives of Georgia/GE)
Systemic Land Registration and Digital Transformation of Archival Documents
Presentation / demo
Sergiu Gordea (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology/AT)
Interactive exploration of Historical documents through advanced knowledge graph visualizations
Discussion
What comes after the search box?
Workshop 3 – Ottoman Collaborative by Sibel Karakoc and Kent Schull
Explore how artificial intelligence can open Ottoman archives to new audiences and new kinds of research. Using Handwritten Text Recognition, AI-assisted indexing and source-grounded natural-language interaction, the Ottoman Collaborative transforms census records and other manuscripts into searchable resources. The workshop highlights opportunities for tracing individuals, families, occupations, places and social networks while creating meaningful connections between Ottoman history and present-day communities.Lunch
DTI Alliance Meeting
Members onlySession 6 – Archives, Crisis and Resilience
Featured impulse
Marlon Muronzi (Young Climate Activism in Zimbabwe/ZW)
From Displacement to Data: Participatory AI Workflows for Documenting Climate-Threatened Heritage in Southern Africa
Presentation
Milena Dobreva (University of Strathclyde/GB)
Smarter Data, Greener AI
Presentation
Sabeeh Farhan (Wasit University/IQ)
From Digital Heritage Records to Participatory Reconstruction: GIS–3D–VR Framework for Post-Conflict Mosul
Presentation
Elisaveta Markovikj (State Archives of the Republic of North Macedonia/MK)
From Disaster Response to Digital Resilience: Building an Integrated Protocol for Emergency Preparedness, Salvage, and Recovery of Archival Materials after Floods and Fire
Presentation
Cristina Villanueva (University of the Philippines Baguio/PH)
Strengthening Indigenous Research: The Archives Digitization Efforts of the University of the Philippines Baguio
Discussion
Who controls digital heritage in times of crisis?
Workshop 4 – AI-assisted research in digitised archives by David Haskyia
What happens when an AI assistant can work directly with trusted archival collections? In this hands-on workshop, participants will connect to the Swedish National Archives’ experimental MCP service and explore fonds descriptions, open datasets and millions of HTR-transcribed pages. Working with real research questions, they will test searching, summarising, translating and collating records—and critically examine hallucinations, misattribution and gaps in coverage. No programming experience is required.DTI Lightning Stage – TRANSFORM! Experiments, Tools & New Approaches – 10 × 3-minute lightning talks
Renato Augusto (Arquivo Historico de Mocambique/National Archives/MZ)
Implementing AtoM database System to facilitate Access of Remote users to Archival holdings at Mozambique Historical Archives: Challenges and Perspectives.
Vlatka Lemic (University of Zagreb/ ICARUS/HR)
University archives on the Vizbi.UNIZG portal – an example of a collaborative approach for open access to academic heritage
Peer Boselie (AEZEL.eu/NL)
The donkey-project ‘revisited’
Paul Nixon (Historic Records Limited/UK)
Digitise, Transform, Inspire: A Collaborative Platform for Unified Archival Discovery and Licensing
Myrteza Sharra (General Directorate of Archives of Albania/AL)
From Reading Room to Distributed Archival Service: The Archive Corner as a Model for Researcher-Centred Access in Albania
Jana Synovcová Borovičková (Historický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i./CZ)
Data on Members of Religious Orders: From a Library Database to an Online Research Environment
Suren Abrahamyan (Max Communications/UK)
Quality Control at the Point of Capture: Software Tools for Digitisation
Martin Rechtorik (National Archives Czech Republic/CZ)
Beyond Databases: Using dbDIPview for Long-Term Preservation and Access to Digital Archives
Pavlína Nimrichtrová (National archives of the Czech republic/CZ)
AI driven archival appraisal
Maria Pia Tiseo (Università degli Studi della Basilicata – UNINA DSWLab)
From digitised documents to training data: opportunities and challenges of HTR for medieval archival collections
Irina Schmid (American University in Cairo/EG)
AI-Assisted Metadata Generation for Press Photography Collections: A Critical Evaluation and Implications for Archival Practice
Workshop 5 – Proving Authenticity in the Age of Deepfakes: Inside the Backend That Secures Archival Files by Francesco Zambonin & Pablo Toussaint
In an age of deepfakes and synthetic media, how can archives prove that a digital record is authentic? This workshop takes participants inside the Global Authentic Memory Initiative and follows an archival file as it becomes independently verifiable through cryptographic hashing, institutional signatures and blockchain timestamping. The session shows how archives can establish integrity, provenance and proof of existence using open standards—without the original file ever leaving the institution.DTI Forum – From Conference to Collaboration: What should we do together?
Six thematic working tables; one concrete collaborative action per table
Instead, divide participants into thematic tables:
Table 1 – Digitisation at scale
What resources/infrastructure could institutions share?
Table 2 – AI & Archives
Where could common training data, models and tools be developed?
Table 3 – Trust & Authenticity
Does the archival community need common principles for AI-generated and digitally transformed records?
Table 4 – Global Access
How can DTI help archives with limited infrastructure?
Table 5 – Skills & Capacity Building
What training is most urgently needed?
Table 6 – From Collections to Communities
How can digitised heritage reach people outside traditional archival audiences?
Each table identifies one concrete collaborative action.
This helps distinguish DTI from a conventional conference: participants should leave with potential projects and partnerships, not merely information.
Session 7 – Rethinking the Digital Archivist
Featured impulse
Martin Critelli (Aix-Marseille University/FR)
Navigating the shift: redefining the archivist’s role in the age of Artificial Intelligence
Presentation
Zbyšek Stodulka (National Archives of the Czech Republic/CZ)
Adapting to the Changing Nature of Appraisal in the Era of Datafication
Presentation
Heather Faulkner (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees/CH)
Refugee Archives and the Digital Reading Room
Presentation
Habibe Qovanaj (The State Agency of Kosovo Archives/XK)
Digital Transformation of Archival Services: The Case of the SEMMA System at the State Agency of Kosovo Archives
Discussion
The Archivist of 2035: What do we stop doing, what do we start doing, and what must never change?
Open floor / speakers’ corner
Meet & Greet with the speakers of the day – an opportunity for individual questions and informal exchange.
ICARUS Members Forum
We are delighted to invite everyone around ICARUS partner institutions to share their ideas towards any new initiative focusing on a new large-scale project. An introduction will be made by Birgit Kibal and Vlatka Lemić. You are more than welcome to join us!Dinner in Restaurant Valcha
Informal Evening Get-Together (At Your Own Expense) With Live music & open mic & a lot of fun ✨
Address: Bělohorská 225/105, 169 00 Praha 6-Břevnov
Friday — 20 November
INSPIRE — From Collections to CommunitiesMorning Reflection: From Transformation to Inspiration
Ines Vodopivec (AI4LAM, National library of Norway, Stanford University/SI)
Artificial Intelligence as a Strategic Driver for Cultural Heritage Transformation
Session 8 – Whose Memory? Archives and People
Featured impulse
Cathrin Steiner (fluxguide/AT)
MEMORISE: Multimodal Exploration of Heritage on Nazi Persecution
Presentation
Max Sap (Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken/NL)
Dossier071: making WWII police-archives available to the public
Presentation
Yuval Lubin (Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF)/IL)
Unlocking Archival Voices: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Human Expertise to Trace Pre-World War II Jewish Immigration in the JNF-KKL Archives
Presentation
Martina Bolom-Kotari & Jindrich Kolda & Tomáš Pechánek (Time Machine Cesko + Rodinný archiv/CZ)
Reconstructing Local History as a Collaborative Endeavour: The Broumov Region and the Village of Krinice
Presentation
Milica Popovic (Cultural Centre “Nikola Durkovic” Kotor/ME)
From Scattered Stories to Trusted Digital Heritage: The Kotor Legends Pilot
Discussion
Who gets remembered in the digital archive?
Session 9 – From Collections to Communities
Featured impulse
Vesna Djaic-Skondric (The Archives of the Republic of Srpska/BA)
Beyond Digitisation: Expanding the Public Impact of Archives through Cross-Sector Collaboration
Presentation
Shiwani Kumar (Historified/IN)
From Archive to Audience: Inspiring the Next Generation to Care About History
Presentation
Lenka Salingerová (FIT CTU in collaboration with National Archives in Prague/CZ)
Archiquiz: How Can Archives Become Engaging Without Sacrificing Authenticity?
Presentation
Mae Lanie Caro (University of the Philippines Diliman/PH)
From Viewing to Participation: Designing Interactive Digital Archival Experiences for Community Engagement
Presentation
Chris De Loof (Europeana Network Association (ENA)/NL)
The Human Face of Digital Transformation: why archives need networks as much as technology
Discussion
From Access to Engagement: How Do Archives Build Communities / Communities Build Archives?
Workshop 6 – Time Atlas: Builders Community Event by Isabella di Lenardo & Beatrice Vaienti
Explore how spatial and temporal context can open an archive’s collections to new audiences and new research questions. The Time Atlas is an interactive geohistorical browser that lets you navigate through time as easily as through space, reconnecting records and artefacts to their spatio-temporal position. In this hands-on session, participants will learn how to showcase their own data, work on it together in a shared workspace, and discover material from other collections, always with sources preserved and contributing institutions acknowledged.From Ideas to Action – Six Ideas from the DTI Forum
One representative from each Thursday working group gets 90 seconds to present its proposed action.
End of conference
Guided Tour 1: Brevnov
Address: Benedictine Archabbey of St. Adalbert and St. Margaret, Brevnov: Markétská 1/28, 169 00, Praha 6
Guided Tour 4: National Archives – New! Additional Time Slot
Address: 2nd department, Milady Horákové 5/133, 160 00 Praha 6Guided Tour 2: Strahov
Address: Royal Canonry of Premonstratensians at Strahov, Strahovské nádvoří 132/1, 118 00 Praha 1
Guided Tour 3: National Archives
Address: 2nd department, Milady Horákové 5/133, 160 00 Praha 6Dinner in Strahov Monastery
Informal Goodbye Evening Get-Together (At Your Own Expense)
Address: Restaurace na Pekle
Strahovské nádvoří 133/3
110 00 Prague 1
Organized by:
Supported by:
The members of DTI are:
