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Sharing Our Heritage to Shape Our Future

Authors:
Andrea Nanetti
Anna Simpson

Keywords: multi-user sharing platforms; collaborative visioning for the future; heritage science

Abstract:
This is a position paper about heritage and futures that the authors present for discussion to set the stage for a subsequent analysis of the topic supported by statistics and formal proofs. In social eco-informatics, a significant, challenging, not yet solved problem comes from the fact that the global Internet community is entering the age of collaborative and generative design: not of a central object, but of complex systems. People are looking around them, spotting patterns of connection, extrapolating as trends converge, questioning the implications, and coming together in groups to reimagine the future. The recognition that we need to come together to shape our common futures does not just coincide with the rise of social media: it is thanks to social media that this consciousness has reached such scale. Now, social networking sites are being created with the intention to help people across the world talk about the future they want and co-design it. In this process, heritage, seen as the treasure trove of human experience, is found to be centre-stage. We do not know what the next generation will value and like, but we can display and discuss what humans valued and liked and why, using the results to make better decisions. The practice of sharing heritage can become the context and the method for collaborative design. This paper inquires how effective these new platforms are in shaping visions for the future, and what difference an emphasis on sharing heritage makes to their success. And, in conclusion, the paper underlines how comprehensive and systematic use of heritage (seen as the treasure of human experiences) becomes the key science for sustainable and dynamic innovation in the coming anthropogenic era, during which human activity is becoming the dominant influence – not only in climate and the environment, but also in the human genetic and epigenetic heritages evolutionary processes.

Pages: 82 to 90

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2015

Publication date: November 15, 2015

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2326-9294

ISBN: 978-1-61208-443-5

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from November 15, 2015 to November 20, 2015