Digital Legacies

Maybe, for the first time in history, we have accumulated so much knowledge that we are now able to reimagine our existence in a more attainable fashion, including looking more into the outer space as a feasible proposition. We will soon be able to reprogram our genes to have a different outcome than nature had chosen for us. It might look scary initially, but we have been doing it already for quite some time. We do surgeries to change our body not because we need, but because we want. We correct failures in our evolutionary process by operating our eyes or to cure cancer. We even take pieces of our body to prevent diseases. Revolutionaries have greater will. Like Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Nikola Tesla, Leonardo Da Vinci, Alexander Graham Bell, Sandford Fleming, Marie Curie, and many others, they will keep coming in larger numbers, and will always challenge the status quo, our comfort zones, and will propose new ways of changing the world. The difference I try to understand, is how digital technologies have impacted not only the way we do things, but rather, the way we think about the world, and all the possibilities surrounding us. This series aims to describe different phenomena that one way or another, are shifting the paradigms of what we are allowed to imagine. This new boundaryless modus operandi has been democratised, which means many more people will be able to influence the world with new technologies. I would claim that the new frontiers are starting to be imagined now, and they are to a great extent built on digital legacies.

1. Digital Legacies: An introduction on digital cultures

The first in the series explores the idea of culture, seeking to find patterns that explain the influences and inspirations of technology and the digital era.

2. Digital Legacies: Ownership

This column questions the changing notion of ‘ownership’ within the digital era, which has created the sharing economy, online services and non-physical commodities.

3. Digital Legacies: Transparency

Julius Wiedemann observes that open technologies, exposed services, communication and see-through materials in architecture fuel a world of increasing transparency.

4. Digital Legacies: Education

This column discusses the ongoing revolution in the field of education where open-source information is readily accessible, giving rise to more questions than answers.

5. Digital Legacies: Connectivity

The columnist explores how connectivity in a digital sense has created an unprecedented global civilisation, with information constantly circulating like blood, keeping the world alive.

6. Digital Legacies: Generation Gap

Change is speeding up, says ‘digital immigrant’ Julius Wiedemann as he contemplates on generation gaps and the role of technology in causing generations to ‘evolve’ much faster.

7. Digital Legacies: Search

Julius Wiedemann goes back in time to analyse the path that brought us into a time where almost everyone has access to the knowledge humankind has created so far.

8. Digital Legacies: Data

Analysing how data and information are used in a world where digital tools are being democratised to advance technology.

9. Digital Legacies: Co-everything

The column delves into the rise of digital collaborations, noting that interdependence is becoming the very fabric of future creation in more engaging environments.

10. Digital Legacies: Hyperlinking

Joining the dots with all the information mankind has accumulated till date, hyperlinking might lead to undiscovered ideas, further advancing the 'age of information'.

11. Digital Legacies: Reminders

The columnist contemplates how we use digital technologies to aid our cognitive bandwidths and how our phone’s chiming reminders are more than just a flash on the screen.

12. Digital Legacies: Sharing

To Julius Wiedemann, new forms of sharing has been a clear indication of living in different times - a time where information flows easily, quickly and benevolently.

13. Digital Legacies: Remote Work

Julius Wiedemann comments on the anticipated paradigm shift in economies, caused by the acceleration of remote work and digital technologies.