Discover practical strategies to secure your community’s archives and collections. Hosted by TechSoup’s Public Good App House, this demo event opens with Kaitlin Donovan from the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web explaining why they invest in decentralized storage for community archives.

What You Will Learn

• How decentralized storage enables data autonomy, allowing organizations to maintain local control while providing global access.

• How decentralized storage aligns with nonprofit values by promoting open access, equity, and long-term stewardship of information, ensuring communities can preserve and share their own histories without dependence on commercial platforms.

• Real-world examples from Cultural Memory Lab participants who have successfully migrated collections to IPFS and implemented governance models that protect community ownership.

Live Demos

{B/qKC}: A Black Queer Archive
Founder Nasir Montalvo shares how the archive began from a search for Black queer community in Kansas City and grew into a living record of underground ballroom culture and the history of Soakie’s, the city’s only Black gay bar. Learn how their licensing model keeps contributors in control, compensates elders, and challenges extractive archival practices. See their process for moving materials from Google Drive onto IPFS and building a public catalog governed by the community.

Mobility Independence Foundation: Open-Source Mobility Designs
Matthew Lacey, Vice President at The Mobility Independence Foundation, explains how the foundation tackles the profit-driven, slow-moving durable medical equipment industry by making open-source designs freely accessible. Hear how they are building a decentralized repository of power chair and wheelchair designs, complete with manuals and schematics, hosted on decentralized storage, to ensure access even in restrictive environments. 

Digital Memory Keepers: Zapotec Biocultural Knowledge
Kiado Cruz of Servicios Universitarios y Redes de Conocimientos en Oaxaca collaborates with Zapotec communities to document traditional agriculture, environmental vocabulary, and oral histories. This bilingual archive safeguards biocultural knowledge while respecting indigenous data sovereignty. Hear how the team uses decentralized storage to keep materials under community control and accessible to both Zapotec speakers and the broader public.

Who Should Attend

Archivists, librarians, museum staff, community project leaders, and practitioners seeking permanence, censorship resistance, and data autonomy.

Why This Matters

Small, community-based collections face fragile storage, platform dependency, and increasing takedowns. Decentralized storage provides durable, verifiable access without surrendering control to gatekeepers. This showcase delivers repeatable, proven patterns—not hype.

About the Cultural Memory Lab

An incubator supporting community archives, libraries, museums, and cultural organizations in testing decentralized strategies for preserving collective memory. The Cultural Memory Lab is a joint project of Gray Area, TechSoup, and the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web.

The Cultural Memory Lab is supported by an award from the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. Public Good App House is a project of Caravan Studios, a division of TechSoup.