Speakers at the Strategic Forum Fantastic Futures 2026
We’re excited to introduce the speakers joining us at Fantastic Futures 2026! Bringing together researchers, practitioners, and experts from across the fields of AI, culture, and heritage, they will share their insights, experiences, and ideas on how AI is shaping the future of our sector.
Produced by Dream Machine App
Topic 1: Strategic Forum: Public AI: Building trust. Serving the public good.
1. 1. The Case for Public AI: Making It Happen With Cultural Heritage
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a powerful and disruptive socio-cultural technology, the cultural heritage sector finds itself in a transitional state where old rules no longer apply, and new ones are not yet established. Rather than adopting the narrative that AI is a race that must be won at all costs, the cultural heritage sector would benefit from an approach where technology is governed by public values, instead of shaped by private interests alone.
Europeana presents ‘The case for Public AI: making it happen with cultural heritage’ – a position paper developed with over 400 cultural heritage professionals through the Alignment Assembly on Culture for AI.
Harry Wervayen
is General Director of the Europeana Foundation, and treasurer of the AI4LAM Governing Board. A central concern in his work is how AI reshapes collective memory, knowledge production, and cultural plurality, and what it means to treat information as a public good rather than a proprietary asset.
At Europeana, he works with museums, libraries, archives, policymakers, and technologists across Europe to support digital transformation and to ensure that digitised cultural collections remain accessible and reusable as public resources.
Harry has served on various governing boards and advisory groups, including AI4LAM, Time Machine Organisation, IIIF, the Competence Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, the European Heritage Awards, and the Khalili Foundation.
1. 2. The Future of Cultural Memory – addressing the paradox of open with digital public goods
AI is reshaping information discovery, and cultural heritage institutions face a stark reality: if collections aren’t model-accessible, they risk invisibility. Yet open access faces a “Paradox of Open.”
Industrial AI scrapers – now comprising over half of web traffic – mine public library, archive, and museum collections for private gain without attribution, reciprocity, or financial support, overburdening public knowledge infrastructure.
In this keynote, Jon Lloyd explores the connection between the DPG ecosystem and the role of AI for Culture and Culture for AI. Drawing from recent work and discussions, Jon makes the case for collaboration: on small, fully open models that meet the DPG Standard, shared governance frameworks that preserve provenance and attribution, and connecting disparate ecosystems to change the rules of the AI game.
Jon Lloyd
has been with the DPGA since November 2022. As Director of Advocacy and Program Director of 50-in-5, he builds upon his nearly two decades of experience as an established leader working at the intersection of technology and human rights, having worked with organisations such as the Mozilla Foundation, Global Witness, and Amnesty International, and through advising governments, civil society, and academic institutions.
Jon leverages his expertise to lead the 50-in-5 campaign and advocacy goals of the DPGA, aiming to help ensure an open, inclusive, and interoperable digital future built on a foundation of cooperation and collaboration.
He lives in London, UK, via New Zealand and Canada.
1. 3. From Freeloading to Fair: Mozilla Data Collective and Preserving the Public Good
The institutions that safeguard humanity’s cultural memory, galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (collectively known as the GLAM sector) are confronting a paradox that defines the current moment in AI development. Years of careful digitisation of their archives have transformed physical collections into vast, machine-readable repositories of human knowledge. Yet the very openness that would make these collections a gift to the public now exposes them to extraction, commodification, and misuse by the AI industry’s insatiable demand for training data. The result is a fundamental question of data governance: How can GLAM institutions maintain sustainable sovereignty and authority over the datasets they are mandated to steward with care, while staying true to their mission of sharing the world’s knowledge with the public?
At this critical juncture, Mozilla Data Collective launched a first-of-its-kind data sharing platform for human agency and fair value exchange. Uploaders own their datasets, set terms of use, and decide who benefits from their data. Our vision is a tech future that is multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal; our mission is to achieve that future by redefining how AI data is created, shared, and governed. Core to this mission is the conviction that in order for AI to serve the public good, reciprocity must be central in any data exchange. Christine Kim, Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at Mozilla Data Collective, will provide an overview of how their team collaborating with communities and organisations across multiple domains to move from an untenable status quo of freeloading, to an alternative future grounded in preserving the public good.
Christine Kim
is the Sr Director of Strategic Partnerships at Mozilla Data Collective, a first-of-its-kind platform that aims to rebuild the data-for-AI ecosystem, so that people and communities have control over who accesses their data, for what purposes. At Mozilla Data Collective, Christine engages with a diversity of partners – nonprofits, social enterprises, tech companies, GLAMs, etc. – who wish to share and download datasets with fair value exchange.
Previously, she served as Director of Technology Adoption at Co-Develop Fund, leading $14.3M in investments across digital government projects in 10+ countries, spanning financial inclusion, social protection, and civil registration. Her work has enabled governments to build robust digital public infrastructure through strategic partnerships with organisations including the Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and multiple digital public goods.
Topic 2: Strategic Forum: Collective Voice: Building a shared voice. Acting together.
2. 1. Institutional Data Initiative, and LAM’s position & relationship with Big Tech
While corporate interests have long played a role in LAM spaces, this time is different. Too fast, too complicated, and too dangerous—these are all phrases used to describe both AI and this talk. But buried beneath the hype is the possibility of a thriving balance between LAM and Big Tech, if only we’re open to finding it.
Greg Leppert
is the Executive Director of the Institutional Data Initiative at Harvard Law School Library, a research initiative working to refine and publish collections from knowledge institutions as high-quality, public datasets for AI training. He is also the Chief Technologist of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University.
Previously, Greg built startups in NYC and Austin, toured the U.S. and Canada in bands, worked to acquire a hospital, and set type as a printer at a historic letterpress studio. He is a strong believer that most people want to do good in the world and are simply looking for the right way to go about it.
2. 2. Transforming Libraries with AI & Machine Learning
Academic and research libraries steward collections of extraordinary scale and complexity. These collections share a common set of challenges: they are growing faster than budgets and staffing can sustain, their digital surrogates remain largely opaque to computational inquiry, and researcher expectations for what “access” means now extend well beyond a catalog record pointing to a file.
This presentation argues that AI and machine learning offer libraries practical, already-proven pathways to meet these challenges. Through a selection of real-world case studies from university and research libraries, each framed as a problem a real institution faced and how they solved it, the talk grounds the conversation in institutional need rather than technology for its own sake.
Greg Ritter
has taught at the University of Iowa, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of Richmond, and later managed the Gallaudet University Library's academic technology program. Over a long stint with ed tech company Blackboard Inc., he held various leadership roles in professional services, product management, and strategy. Greg joined Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2019, where he leads higher education strategy for libraries, scholarly communication, and research data management.
2. 3. The Open Heritage Statement: harnessing a collective voice in cultural heritage amid a changing technological and policy landscape
The Open Heritage Statement is a global call for equitable access to public domain heritage in the digital environment. Emerging from a Creative Commons collaboration with 74 organizations spanning six continents, the Open Heritage Statement offers a path forward for global policy setting–and demonstrates the power of unified community voices in cultural heritage, particularly in a time of rapid social, technological, and even policy change.
This talk will explore considerations around AI and heritage, as well as the ways to address unfair barriers to access and reuse of heritage in the public domain raised in the Open Heritage Statement.
Shanna Hollich
as Learning and Training Manager at Creative Commons (CC), Shanna supports all of CC’s programs and projects by identifying and developing professional development and learning opportunities that are relevant to CC’s mission, including (but not limited to) the CC Certificates.
Prior to joining CC, Shanna worked for 15 years as a librarian across multiple institutions – K-12 school, public, government, and academic. Their research during this time primarily involved copyright reform, cultural heritage, open access, open education, and social justice.
The Library of Congress recently hosted a two-day event bringing together over 100 representatives from libraries, archives and museums to share about AI literacy efforts that support the responsible adoption of AI in the LAM sector. This presentation will share the themes, ideas and next steps for developing a shared definition and foundation of AI literacy in LAMs with resources that center the experience and strengths of LAM staff, users and organizations.
Abigail L. Potter
is a Senior Innovation Specialist with the Library of Congress Digital Innovation Lab (aka LC Labs). She's currently leading the collaborative development of Responsible AI strategies, frameworks and practices in libraries, archives and museums. Since joining the Library of Congress in 2006, Abigail has contributed to the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA), the Section 108 Study Group, the Preserving Creative America initiative, and the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC).
Prior to joining the Library, Abigail worked on digital publishing and library programs at National Public Radio, the University of Michigan Library, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the University of Michigan Press. Abigail earned an MS from the University of Michigan, School of Information and a BA from Western Michigan University.
3. 2. Sitting with not-knowing: AI & ethical enquiry
In this interactive Members’ Day talk, we invite a space of pause for reflection upon our own values, and how they might lend themselves to an emergent ethics-of-practice in relation to AI in LAM (Libraries, Archives, Museums) organisations.
Working with the notion of ethics-in-action (Varela, 1999)we explore how ethical expertise is cultivated and exercised in everyday organisational practice. In reflection upon their AI ethics research with staff at State Library Victoria, Ana shares how tensions and frictions around AI are not something to be avoided – but rather, valuable spaces of organisational learning; the sites where ethics ‘happens’ and is practiced.
References: Varela, F.J.,1999, Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition, Stanford University Press
Ana Tiquia
is Head of Innovation & Research at State Library Victoria, Australia. With a background as an academically trained futurist, strategist, artist and cultural producer, Ana has worked at the intersections of art, technology, design and research for over 15 years in the UK and Australia. Founder of cultural and strategic consultancy All Tomorrow’s Futures, they have worked internationally across museums, the performing arts, contemporary art galleries, interactive studios, design practices to develop strategy, lead cultural innovation projects and produce exhibitions, installations, and interactive projects using advanced technologies. Previously they have worked with Somerset House, the Barbican, Melbourne Museum and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra.
In their role State Library Victoria, Ana has launched SLV LAB – the Library’s digital prototyping and innovation hub, and the Creative Technologist-in-Residence program.
Ana is passionate about working creatively and critically with advanced technology and data in the cultural sector, and public participation in future imagining. They love using participatory methods to conduct research, develop strategy, and foster expanded thinking around data and technology futures.
3. 3. AI4LAM Community Survey, Working Groups and Academia Programs
This session will present key updates from the AI4LAM Community, focusing on three areas: the AI4LAM Survey, progress across Working Groups, and the development and launch of Academia Programs. It will outline current community needs and priorities, provide an overview of ongoing activities and emerging initiatives, and introduce the evolving educational programs and projects designed to strengthen collaboration between AI4LAM, academic partners, and the wider GLAM sector.
Ines Vodopivec
was appointed in 2025 as AI4LAM Secretary General to strategically lead the implementation phase of AI4LAM on the road toward a sustainable organizational model.
She brings significant experience in cultural heritage and digital humanities, having previously served as Deputy Director of the National and University Library of Slovenia and as a member of the UNESCO Memory of the World National Committee from 2020 to 2024.
She is currently still Vice Dean at Nova University’s Faculty of Slovenian and International Studies, where she specializes in interdisciplinary research methodologies and digital humanities. Dr. Vodopivec is also active in international organizations, serving as a member of the Management Board of the Europeana Network Association and as a member of the IFLA Digital Humanities – Digital Scholarship Committee.
4. Sponsor Presentation: Introduction to Schmidt Sciences’ Funding Programs
Schmidt Sciences is a philanthropy founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt. During this session you will learn about our funding programs, emphasizing “HAVI,” which focuses on research in the digital humanities and AI.
Brett Bobley
is an Advisor to the HAVI (Humanities and AI Virtual Institute) program at Schmidt Sciences, where he does grantmaking to support research teams doing work in the digital humanities with a particular focus on artificial intelligence.
Prior to Schmidt Sciences, Brett was the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the US National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). In that capacity, he oversaw the agency’s information technology, software development, records management, grant evaluation and data collection, and open science initiatives. During the Biden administration, Brett served on the government-wide Subcommittee on Open Science under the White House’s National Science and Technology Council and developed the NEH’s first open science policy.
In addition to his CIO work, Brett was also the founder and director of the NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities (ODH), which funded research that brought together the humanities and advanced computing. In that role, Brett helped to establish the field of digital humanities both domestically and internationally, via many global grantmaking partnerships with international funders.
Brett holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago and an MS in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.
