16. Arctic World Archive. storing humanity’s treasures: from scans of the Taj Mahal to the python source code.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): you can make a digital twin of the museum in Cairo preserved in the permafrost in the Arctic for perpetuity. And I think it's a higher probability that it survives there than the physical assets actually will do in Egypt. Because look what happened just recently during the earthquake in Turkey. A cata catastrophe of enormous proportions.

Also a lot of, very old cultural heritage was completely destroyed and lost due to that earthquake. There is such immense amount of threats to both physical objects, cultural, heritage, memory, and the digital objects in the digital domain. So one actually needs to take some action to make sure it can survive in its authentic form.

[00:00:40] Mizter Rad: hello, beautiful humans. Today I'm extremely excited to welcome two Norwegian entrepreneurs. But first, I want you to imagine the world 500 years from now. Let's say it is the 29th of March of the year, 2523.

What will the world look like? What about all the beautiful buildings we've built in the past 500 years? Or the technology, the code that we've written in the past 50 years. Well, today I'm extremely excited to welcome these two entrepreneurs that are making sure that a thousand years from now, our descendants can have access to humanity's most precious assets. And listen to this. They do this by storing these assets in a vault located deep inside an arctic mountain between Norway and the North Pole.

How cool is that? What an honor. Katrine, Rune, how are you doing?

"hvordan har du det".

[00:02:02] Katrine Loen (AWA): Oh, hello. Thank you for nice introduction. We are doing great. Thank you. We are then sitting in Norway with the fresh new snow outside. So it's cold.

[00:02:14] Mizter Rad: I can imagine. Well, I'm in Berlin and it's sunny. Oh, lucky. Finally. Let's start with the basic, Katrine and, and Rune explain people why is your job and what you're doing important?

[00:02:28] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes. So my name Rune Bjerkestrand so I'm the founder. I'm the managing director of, uh, basically two uh, entities, uh, Piql, which has a unique, uh, data storage technology. And this, uh, vault, uh, which will be the key focus today, the Arctic World Archive on the island of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean.

[00:02:49] Mizter Rad: And why do you think it's, this, this is important what, what you're doing. Why do you think it's important to store humanity's precious asset with your technology and in your archive between Norway and the North Pole?

[00:03:02] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes. Um, well, if you read the news every day, uh, the world is actually in quite dramatic change.

There is, uh, wars, there is war in Europe. Uh, there is, uh, cyber hacking, ransomware, uh, in the newspapers every day. Even in this little country in the north with Norway, five and a half million people, there's headlines about companies, uh, being hacked. Data being manipulated. Data being deleted. So we think it's very important to actually preserve things which are world memory and which is describing the world as it has been historically and as the world actually is today. To make sure that that information can be brought authentically into the future so that future generations can trust what they read and see and hear. And not, not how you know that if this actually happened or not.

[00:03:58] Mizter Rad: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's, that I guess that's very important to make sure that. People in the future know what happened or what, what, what was the, the truth of our current times. But how do you, so I, I would like to start also by understanding how you find these treasures. Maybe you can take us through the journey of a, an institution.

Let's say you were talking before we went on about an institution from Brazil or Mexico that is gonna deposit some of their assets in this, um, archive in the middle of between Norway and the North Pole. How, how does it go? How, maybe take us through the journey, Rune.

[00:04:43] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Okay. Uh, so firstly we don't find the treasures.

So it's not, we are not the one to decide what is really world memory or not. It's up to the institutions themselves, up to the companies and corporations and up to the individuals. To decide, seen from their perspective what is important to keep authentically and to make sure it's sent into the future.

And they have different kind of motivation. It could be because some institutions are obliged by law to keep certain information. Other museums, for example, galleries, they keep things because it has a value, an intellectual value, commercial value, historical value. So there's a lot of reasons why you want to preserve something for the future.

So our role is actually to enable that but also importantly, not to curate, but to make sure that what is deposited is actually within the laws and rules of Norway and the world. That's important aspect.

[00:05:46] Mizter Rad: Okay. So you don't curate, you just make sure that it's legal basically. Yes. Correct. Within the Norwegian, yeah.

Yeah. Law system.

[00:05:54] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yeah. Correct. And, and the recommendations from, you know, the international institutions and organizations and bodies that have a saying and an opinion on this matter.

[00:06:05] Mizter Rad: Okay. So, I mean, I'm imagining, I'm gonna put myself in your shoes and think, you know, I wake up one day and I think, oh, there's so many assets in the world that I would like to store for the future of humanity, and I would like my descendants to see them in, you know, 500, 800 years from now.

How do you know which assets are ready to be stored in the vault? And, you know, how do you, how do you get there? Because I can imagine, oh, I would love to store the the 3D scans of the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State or, yeah, something like this. How do you, how do you find those or how, how do they find you in a way?

How do you, do you somehow influence that or how, how do you get there?

[00:06:58] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Good and interesting question, and I can basically answer with questioning you. How did you find us?

[00:07:06] Mizter Rad: Well, I spent, uh, half of my days, uh, researching interesting entrepreneurs and projects. Mm-hmm. . So that's how I found you.

[00:07:15] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yeah. And Piql the mother company is based in Norway, but we have partners all around the world. They do also spread the news and the interesting aspects about our technology and also the archive. A lot of people hear about them through their national Piql partners.

[00:07:34] Mizter Rad: That's a good, that's a good bridge to the technology cuz I know Piql the technology, the company that builds the technology behind the storing of all these treasures. Yep. Maybe you can tell me a bit more about that.

[00:07:51] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes. The technology is of course, a very, very important fundamental for the whole thing.

Uh, since it's the technology that enables the lifetime of the data, it's the technology also that enables that data can never be hacked or deleted or manipulated. So basically to ensure the authenticity and the integrity of the data in the future. So what Piql developed is a technology where data is written as bits and bytes, uh, to photosensitive film.

So Photosensitive film, uh, was for those that have never touched film, what was capturing images in camera before. It was also what was used to screen, uh, films in the theaters, in the movie theaters before. So we came from that industry. So Piql came from that industry. Working with film. And then we saw it's a fantastic information carrier that actually has proven that it can carry information from the past into the future.

The last 150 so years. So going back to the early first movies made by the Lumiere brothers in France. And also to George Man Eastland, George Eastman establishing Kodak. That technology has proven that it could carry those images from then until now in a very good condition and actually could tell the truth about what things looks, looked like in the past.

So that's the starting point for us. Then we thought, okay, if it can carry visual images, couldn't it also be used to carry data? So what we did is that we converted the film technology to be a digital information carrier. And by doing that, you got all the benefits, uh, from that information carrier. The longevity, because it had already proven itself for 150 years.

Further film has been been used, uh, since the second World War in the shape and form of microfilm. And that has been kind of, um, accepted to be an information carrier that can last 500 years. So at the outset we had a quite nice fundamental to convert this into a digital information carrier. So what we do is that we receive any kind of data: a database, audio, the recording, a video, a document, a scanned 3D object like you mentioned the Eiffel Tower.

We haven't done the Eiffel Tower, but we could do it. All that ends up in a stream of bits and bytes, and that's written to the film as super high resolution QR code. So if you can visualize the QR code, but it has so had such high resolution that you can hardly anymore see that QR code. That's how the bits and the bytes are stored and preserved.

But then there is a very important aspect on this film because it's a visual medium. You can still see what is there, so you can hold it against the sun and you can see with your bare eyes what's there. You cannot of course, understand the data because that's a super high resolution QR code.

But you can, we have made it self-contained. And we have another word in Norwegian which is different than self-contained. But imagine yourself that you had been to Bodo, right? And in Norway. And in Norway there's a lot of wilderness and there is high mountain plateaus. So if you want to cross one of those high mountain plateaus in winter, which will take you three, four days, you need to pack everything in the backpack that you need to have to survive a winter storm because you could be on that mountain and suddenly the big storm comes in the frost minus 25 degrees, and you have to dig yourself into a hole in the snow and you need to have everything there to survive: food, clothes war where things you can heat with, et cetera. The same is with the film. So we made it self-contained. So since it's visual, you can actually include and clear text instructions on how to understand the medium.

how to take that QR code and convert it back to the original file. And an important part of the technology when you wanna store it long term, is also that we convert any proprietary file formats. Like for example, uh, Microsoft Word, which is a proprietary format. We convert that to open source Adobe PDF slash a, which is an open source license free format.

So then we have a format that can live where we can include the file format description and the source code of the Adobe reader. So in the future, when somebody finds the film, it's enough to hold it against the light source and then you can understand everything and you basically have everything in your hands that you need to get the data back and to actually see and understand the data.

So it's a very unique technology, you know, at the, as a fundamental for the whole thing. Was that, was that understandable? .

[00:12:33] Mizter Rad: I think that's understandable, but I wanna break it into pieces. Yeah, yeah. Just so we understand it better. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So maybe you can give us an example, like a real, real case example of one of your institutions, one of your clients that already is storing, so, okay.

So first of all, just to be clear, because some people get, when I, when I talk to some people in my network and told them about this conversation, they started asking me, okay, so they can, they can also store jewelry and physical objects in the vault and stuff like that. And, and no, that's not the case, right?

We're talking about digital assets or assets that could be physical, but they get digitized and then stored in the vault.

[00:13:13] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yeah, yeah. Correct. Yeah, absolutely correct. Needs it can be, be pretty much anything. It, yes. It could be yourself. I mean, you could do, uh, a higher resolution 3D scan of yourself. You create a 3D model.

[00:13:25] Mizter Rad: My digital twin.

[00:13:27] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Your digital twin, yes. Mm-hmm. , which is always your friend, will always never do anything else than what you do. Yeah. But you could con that is converted to a huge 3D model, which is which is a huge file, which is a stream of bits and bytes.

[00:13:41] Mizter Rad: Who Does that conversion, sorry, do you do it or?

[00:13:44] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): We can also help with doing the conversion from physical to digital, from analog to digital.

So just as examples, you, you wanted some examples. The Norwegian National Museum. they have a huge collection of famous paintings. Uh, one of these famous painting that your listeners might know is the scream from the Norwegian paint Pan Painter, Edward Monk. So they have done a very high resolution scan of that painting in colors. With x-ray. With UV and infrared light, so they can actually see behind the paint and, and the canvas and everything.

And that generates a lot of, uh, images, digital images that you can actually see on your computer screen. So those are then, uh, sent to us and we write them to film. So the first thing we do is that we put them into packages, and then those packages are converted to light. And it's the light, which is writing the QR codes on the film.

So there's a step here that converts data to light because film is exposed by light. So that means that these paintings is ending up as QR codes. On a flat strip of film. And when you, in the future...

[00:14:54] Mizter Rad: sorry, but what do you mean with, with QR code? Just like a regular QR code that just, just that we all know.

[00:14:59] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yeah, just imagine a regular QR code except that it's much, much bigger, much, much bigger. You can hardly see the small black and white dots. So there's a very, very high resolution QR code. And another example is that we did the project last year where we did a high resolution 3d scan of Taj Mahal, the Indian UNESCO World Heritage Monument.

Then we had a team that were there for three weeks doing high resolution, capturing with a lot of different technologies and ending up with a huge amount of images. I think it was like 1.6 million images. Which is then put together to create a 3D model of Taj Mahal. That ends up to be a huge data file in turn that we write onto the film as these QR codes.

So we can help to do that conversion from physical and analog to digital. But you can also give us your digital file. So this program, this, this podcast, once it's done, it's a, is an audio file. You can send us that audio file and we convert that audio file to light. And that light is creating the QR codes on film.

And in the future, the QR code is converted back to the original, I guess it's a wav file. And then the wav file can be listened, because that's an open source format where the playback software can also be on the film.

[00:16:17] Mizter Rad: But wait, so I don't understand what you mean that is converted to light. What do you mean with that

[00:16:23] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): film?

Have you ever worked with film?

[00:16:26] Mizter Rad: No.

[00:16:26] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): No. Film is a photosensitive medium. Before you had film cameras that took pictures. It was not with a digital chip inside, it was with a strip of film. Yeah. And then you have an, uh, lens in front and you have a shutter and you open the shutter and the film is exposed to light.

That light created a picture of what you were pointing at with a camera. Yeah. So then you have the, the picture on camera. And once you have done the picture, you develop the film, you put it through a, a photochemical process, and then the picture becomes visible on the film. Then you can hold it against the light and you can see it.

It's physical, it's there. Mm. So to create that QR code on film, you need light. So we are painting the QR code, writing the QR code onto the film with light.

[00:17:13] Mizter Rad: So if someone finds this in a hundred years from now, 500 years from now mm-hmm. , they're gonna, what are they gonna find?

[00:17:22] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): So they will find, in the Arctic World Archive , they will find, uh, a box, which is called a Piqlbox.

On that Piqlbox there is a label that basically explains high level what this is. So they can understand then they can,

[00:17:37] Mizter Rad: in what language is that? In English?

[00:17:39] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It's in English or it's your decide language. So we, we typically, we have some clients like GitHub which is preserving you know, the open source source code.

They have five or six languages, not on the label, but you know, on the film itself to explain to the world what this is. So most commonly used languages. And then what you do is that you open the box and you take out the film. You hold the end of the film against the, the sun or a light source, and you can read with your bare eyes and understand what this is. This is a data storage medium. This contains the paintings of Edgar Monk from the National Museum in Norway. If you want to get these paintings back so that you can see them, you need to do this and this and this. And if you do this and this and this, you're ending up with seeing Edgar Monk's scream on your computer of the future.

[00:18:31] Mizter Rad: like you said, is self-contained, so everything is within that. Yeah. Hardware. And this hardware is the what, what Piql also develops. Is is that correct?

[00:18:40] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): That's the PiqlFilm Information Carrier. That's the Piqlfilm. It's the, it's a reel of Photosensitive film. And I, I guess it's difficult to imagine this if you never touched and seen film before.

[00:18:52] Mizter Rad: Uh, I mean, I've seen, I, I was a kid, but yeah, I, I, I know what film looks like and how it feels. Yep, yep. The structure of it. Yep, exactly. Um, okay, so Piql develops this technology and it, you, you say that it, it could last a thousand years, but what is the material, um, around it that, that protects the film?

Cuz I, I understand the film is very delicate as well, or not?

[00:19:19] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Well, it's actually quite robust. So the base of the film, uh, there's a, there's a kind of substrate which carries the, the photosensitive material. It's a, it's a polyester base so that, that, that base itself has a lifetime of, you know, 1500, 2000, 3000 years.

It's, it's a really long, long lifetime substrate. On that polyester base, it's a layer of silver halide. So it's silver, and silver is light sensitive. So when you expose silver for light, it creates an image. And that image is the QR code.

[00:20:00] Mizter Rad: Okay. Why a QR code?

[00:20:03] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Because a QR code is a very, and, and that's another philosophical angle or what we did because when we developed this, we wanted the whole thing to be extremely robust. Extremely secure. Guaranteed authenticity. Could not be hacked. But also make it very simple to get the data back. Mm-hmm. , because technology today is becoming more and more complex and depending on very complex software solutions, and actually a lot of expertise and very dependent actually on people as well to make technology run.

So we wanted to make something, as I mentioned, that was self-contained and that was so simple that anyone could actually understand how to, uh, get the data back.

So that's a fundamental principle. And then after some research, it became pretty obvious that to use the concept of a QR code, which is a very well known concept, very well established concept. It's used all over the world, you know, for prices and links to web pages and user guides and, and everything.

So it's a very well known, very, very well understood concept. So what we did was to enhance that, expand that concept of the QR code into the super high resolution QR code, which is on the Piqlfilm. So it's just to make it very simple, so that you don't need a PhD to really understand what you find.

But it could be you, it could be me, it could be Katrine, that could find it and would intuitively and logically understand how to deal with it and to get the data back.

[00:21:40] Mizter Rad: Okay. I'm, I'm trying to wrap my head, head around it because we kind of assuming that in 500 years from now, people will know what a QR code means.

Is that, is that, uh, correct assumption in a way?

[00:21:56] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): That's not necessary? Are we making That's not necessary. You don't really need to understand anything.

[00:22:02] Mizter Rad: You can be like a complete ignorant of our times and still find that piece of hardware, and still know what that is, what's inside?

[00:22:11] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Have, have you seen the, the Pixar animation movie, WALL-E?

[00:22:14] Mizter Rad: I think. No. , no.

[00:22:17] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): But that's, uh, a thousand years or something into the future. The world has completely changed. The world has been, uh, attacked. The world is completely destroyed. There's almost nothing left. There's a huge dump of equipment and technology. Mm-hmm. . And then there is this mechanical little thing that comes to live, which is a kind of robot.

And he walks around on the dump. There is nobody else. It's dark, it's dead. It's, yeah. And then he finds an old VHS cassette. Do you remember these VHS cassettes? Yeah.

[00:22:48] Mizter Rad: Yeah, sure.

[00:22:49] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): And then he's looking at this VHS cassette. What is this, you know, strange thing. And then he's looking at his himself.

And then, you know, in his, in his belly, there's like a slit slot. Mm-hmm. where he actually puts the VHS cassette inside. And suddenly that VHS cassette comes to live because it happens that in in that Wally robot that came to live it was a VHS player. And then suddenly he could see the world as it was many hundred years ago.

And then he could understand. And then that understanding enabled him to bring things to live again. So the whole, there's a philosophical fundamental here, that it should be so simple, requires so little technology that you can take it as it is. And bring it to life from what you have. And, and if there is people in the future there needs to be light.

That's a, that's a fact because without light, people will not live. Okay? So you have people, you have light. And in the future, if there is light and people there is mostly light, most likely something that can capture that light. And what is it that can capture light, do you think?

[00:23:59] Mizter Rad: What do you mean anything?

I mean, even like the skin can capture light.

[00:24:02] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes. But, uh, something else which is, is like a technology that can capture light. What captures light?

[00:24:08] Mizter Rad: Mm. Plants, uh mm-hmm.

[00:24:10] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): good. But also a camera captures light.

[00:24:13] Mizter Rad: Camera. Okay.

[00:24:14] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Camera captures light and make a picture of that light. Okay. So if you have a light, if you have a camera, and if you have a camera, you most likely also has a com... you have a computer.

So there's a human that has light, that has a camera, that has a computer of the future. It can be any kind of computing device. It just need to be able to add ones and zeros. Then you have what you need to get the data back. Okay. You're not depending on a Blu-ray. You're not depending on a specific interface.

You're not depending on a specific software. You're not depending on anything. Other than what is actually available in the future. And what is on that film?

[00:24:54] Mizter Rad: How many customers or institutions have so far stored or archived their assets in your vault?

[00:25:03] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): So in the Arctic World Archive now, there is around 60 plus institutions that has made around 90 deposits, and they come from 25 countries in the world.

[00:25:16] Mizter Rad: Okay. And those 90 deposits, is there a cap? Like do you, I imagine, do you have like physical space that is obviously limited? Um, is there a cap to that?

[00:25:27] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Not really, because we are in a decommissioned mine, uh, which is huge and there's a lot of vaults in that mine. I don't dare to say we can store all the world's data there, but there's a lot of space.

So, uh, just give us a challenge and we make it fit.

[00:25:44] Mizter Rad: I'll give you this challenge. Imagine so I was recently in Cairo and I had the chance to visit both the Egyptian museum, which is the older museum, a bit cramped and chaotic. Yep. And also the grant. I've been there. You, you've been there. All right, cool.

So, you know, you know which one? It's a bit chaotic, it beautiful place, but it's a bit all over the place, right? Yep. And then there's this other Grand Egyptian museum that there's still building. It's not officially open. But I had the chance to also go in, and the kind of, you know, you can't imagine or you, you understand, Rune if you've been there, the kind of treasures they have, the masterpieces, the assets.

Yeah. They're incredibly valuable for our civilization. Mm-hmm. , you even have this super famous gold mask of Tutankhamun mm-hmm. . And you also have a lot of assets with this hieroglyphics telling a story. Yep. But it's a story that even now we don't really fully understand. We don't know really what they actually meant with all these hieroglyphics or all these figures.

Um, and same happens in Mexico with the Mayas and the Aztecs. The Incas in Peru, and all these previous civilizations. And we are talking about obviously more than a thousand years from now, but, the challenge that I give you now is how can we make sure that what we store today can be decoded tomorrow?

And you went through this a bit, but does it go through your head sometimes that this is still still challenging in a way? What do you think about this?

[00:27:20] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): The biggest challenge there is actually to get the finances. To get the things converted from that physical form into some digital form that can actually be preserved forever.

That's the biggest challenge, challenge actually, that there is. Uh, so funding, funding is a huge challenge to protect the world's human memory. It would be an amazing thing if we could help the Egyptian museum, you know, to, to convert everything. Because what you do, then you make it into 3D models.

You can extract a lot of method data so that you can learn and understand a lot more about the things. You can link all this together, and then you suddenly can make all that available as well. Only not only for those that comes to the museum, but people that wanna make virtual visits. And once you have that, you can actually put it on Piqlfilm and you could put the whole Egyptian museum into the Arctic World Archive.

So you can make a digital twin of the museum in Cairo preserved in the permafrost in the Arctic for perpetuity. And I think it's a higher probability that it survives there than the physical assets actually will do in Egypt. Because look what happened just recently during the earthquake in Turkey. A disaster, a human disaster. A cata catastrophe of enormous proportions.

Also a lot of, uh, very old cultural heritage was completely destroyed and lost due to that earthquake. So due to the world's change, climate change, wars, terrorism. There is such immense amount of threats to both physical objects, cultural, heritage, memory, and the digital objects in the digital domain. So one actually needs to take some action to make sure it can survive in its authentic form.

[00:29:16] Mizter Rad: So in the case of Turkey, now that you bring that up, if we think of maybe some monuments on landmarks that got destroyed, unfortunately because of the earthquake. If you would've digitized those assets before with your technology and then store them in the Arctic world. Uh, wor uh, sorry. Yeah. Arctic world, uh, archive.

Between Norway and the North Pole, we would have the digital files, the digital twins of that, and we would be able basically to go back to that and if we wanted, if we had the funding, to reconstruct that important piece of history. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. You could. So that's basically the, the whole point of story, digitally

[00:30:02] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): you can simple.

Yes, yes. And you can, first of all, you could use it to display. People could see, people could learn. People could understand. I mean, it could be used for education, it could use to, I mean, you need the past to have a future. Uh, and if you can trust the past, I think you will have a better future. But you can also use the whole thing to actually 3D print the whole object in the future.

Right. And you can imagine if you had this, this thing the world as it was 2000 years ago. Right. To be able to actually see and understand authentically what physically was there.

[00:30:42] Mizter Rad: Right, right. So basically like a digital twin of our world 2,000 3,000 years ago, that mean that would be fantastic. And like you said, that would be our education will be much better off without so many question marks, compared to what we have today.

[00:30:58] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes. And the world forgets very, very quickly. Unfortunately, we, we are getting kind of smarter but also kind of more stupid. Uh, And I've been...

[00:31:07] Mizter Rad: in what sense?

[00:31:08] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): No. Well, I, I've been to India at some amazing museums and institutions that have manuscripts, which are written on palm leaves that are 2000 years old, and somehow they are in excellent physical condition.

And there's written things in these, uh, these manuscripts in languages nobody understands. Mm-hmm. , but which is very sophisticated science. So we digitized, uh, or, or we converted or we 3D scanned, uh, an old called Harappan Village in India, which is several thousand years old. They had, um, running water. They had, uh, sewage, toilet systems.

So the, there has been inventions and technology in the past, which has just been forgotten because it has, it wasn't visible anymore. They couldn't see it. Right. It's, it's gone. Destroyed in wars or catastrophes.

[00:32:05] Mizter Rad: So wait, you digitize this manuscripts or the whole city? No, we haven't done, we haven't, we haven't.

Oh, you haven't done that.

[00:32:10] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): The whole city with it. The, the whole city with it. We 3D scanned the whole city. Ah, you 3D scanned the whole city. Yeah. So that's not to serve in the article archive

[00:32:18] Mizter Rad: as well. Oh, that's fantastic. So how do you do, how did you do that?

[00:32:22] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Uh, we had the team, uh, with the round 10, 12 people, which was working then night with a lot of different kind of 3D scanning devices and cameras to capture, uh, basically every single stone because this is a kind of stone city.

Uh, and that is then assembled into a huge 3D model. So these things are, um,

[00:32:49] Mizter Rad: and this was commissioned by the city or

[00:32:52] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It was commissioned by the archeological survey of India.

[00:32:56] Mizter Rad: Mm. So this is an archeological interesting place for, for India, for the world.

[00:33:00] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It's a UNESCO World Heritage, actually. Together with, uh, we did, we did the three sites as a pilot project.

One is Taj Mahal. One is this Harappan city. And the other one, uh, is, uh, um, a kind of stone age settlement in caves. Mm-hmm. where, where people lived and actually where they created art, which was ending up to be more visible, uh, after 3D scanning, because you could see it with different, uh, tech, tech, tech technologies.

You could see it more clearly. Mm-hmm. We also have done another important project in India, which is a forgotten city. Which is a kind of, um, I mean, it reminds me of a, a Mickey Mouse story because, you know, there was this, uh, and this is not a Mickey Mouse story. There's a real story. There was a, a British soldier, which was out, uh, ha hunting for tiger, and he was out in the jungle, and then suddenly he saw a kind of a crack in a, in a, in a mountain, and there was a kind of light inside.

So he, he went in and inside there was a completely forgotten, city, village built in caves called Ajanta caves. And important memories from there, cave paintings has also been 3D scanned and put into the Arctic World Archive.

[00:34:26] Mizter Rad: Hmm. That's very interesting. When you scan this infrastructure of cities like this one that you just mentioned, do you, is there any way of, in a way storing the, the stories that happened in the city. For example, you told me that in the past, the city that you visited, India had clean water and sewage. Mm-hmm uh, but this is a piece of information that you cannot get.. May maybe you could actually, but um, some stories cannot. They're not physically present, you know what I mean?

They're part of the culture. Mm-hmm. Um, is there a way to also insert those stories within a sort of 3D scan of a infrastructure of a city or something like this, or?

[00:35:11] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Mm-hmm. . Yes. Yes, yes, there is. And that's actually very, very important. Um, of course now using the modern technologies of AI and machine learning, you can collect, I mean, everything which is available online, you can collect and you can link it to certain, uh, objects. So for example, this, this, village in itself, you can actually crawl the internet and you can find relevant information, which could be curated, could be non curated. So of course you never know the kind of authenticity of it, right?

[00:35:44] Mizter Rad: The source.

[00:35:45] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yeah. But you could, you could link it all together so that you can create a virtual visit, which is not only to see but to learn, uh, because you're collecting information and linking it to the object. So you could actually create virtual travels across time and space by having all this in the digital domain and link it together.

[00:36:10] Mizter Rad: Interesting. Yes. Interesting. This is very interesting.

[00:36:14] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): For example, this is very interesting because if, I mean, we, Norwegians, we are quite, you know, humble and shy. We'll leave here up in the north. But there was a period of time where we were a bit more forward leaning and aggressive. That was in the Viking era.

Yeah.

And then on the Friday night, we were bored. We were bored, we didn't have anything to do. Okay. We went out in the forest, we picked some magic mushroom and we had, uh, a party and we got crazy and interesting jump into the Viking ships and we rode across. , uh,

[00:36:44] Mizter Rad: is this like a real story? Like, did Vikings actually take mushrooms?

[00:36:47] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yeah. I'm Viking Blood myself, so I, I I can prove it. Wow. On then, then on Friday night, we got crazy. All right. The Viking ships, we ro rode across to Scotland, and I can prove it, but cause my closest DNA matches are Scottish. Oh, so interesting. So then we, we, we plundered and we raped and we went further south.

Uh, we went down to, to England, we went over to, uh, to Paris. We even went down to, uh, to Turkey and Constantinople, which was, uh, Istanbul. We went through the rivers across, you know, that coast today to Russia and Ukraine and into the Black Sea. So you can just imagine when you can link these information together. And you have these objects digitized, you have them accessible, and you start to link this information. You can imagine what an amazing travel you can do in the virtual space and what the kind of education and knowledge that you can get when you start to link this kinds of information together.

[00:37:45] Mizter Rad: Hmm. Very interesting. And so, yeah. Okay. Travel through time and space. That's fantastic. If you have a digital twin of a city in India or Yeah. Yeah. If we would've been able to do that sort of, um,

[00:37:59] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): you this, I mean there is, I mean, you can have this vision, right?

And I have this vision, but to do it, to enable it. You need actually to have the information. You need to have the data. You need to have the 3D scans. You need to have the documents. You need to have the digitized photographies. All your recordings. Uh, manuscripts. Mm-hmm. you need to have it. Mm-hmm. And that's why I also say that there's a, the biggest problem is actually lack of financing to get things done.

[00:38:22] Mizter Rad: The funding. Yeah. So, so what, what, how, how can we get there? How can we make sure we have this funding? Is it about awareness? You guys, you haven't been for 50. How, how long have you been doing this actually?

[00:38:34] Katrine Loen (AWA): We have, uh, the Piql was established in 2002. And, uh, the Arctic World Archive, it opened in, uh, 2017.

[00:38:45] Mizter Rad: Okay. So the Arctic World Archive is kind of new.

[00:38:48] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes.

[00:38:49] Mizter Rad: Relatively new, yeah.

[00:38:50] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes, correct.

[00:38:51] Mizter Rad: So is it about awareness or is it about the willingness of maybe political institutions or governmental world institutions to actually do this? Or what do you think is the main challenge for not getting the funding?

[00:39:04] Katrine Loen (AWA): Mm-hmm.

I think that there are so many things going on in the world, so, and so many things that, politicians need to take action on . So, maybe, um, in their minds they're not that, aware about the importance of doing something about their history today.

[00:39:24] Mizter Rad: Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine.

[00:39:26] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes. So I think then to make them more aware about it, and also, uh, then, uh, say how important it's to do action now we'll make them understand how important it's to do something.

[00:39:39] Mizter Rad: Is there a way to link this to ROIs, like return on investment? Because if I'm an investor and I have the chance to invest in a company that is gonna give me a certain percentage per year, um, on return... com, and I compare that to, um, investing a bunch of the same amount of money on digitizing maybe my city or my culture, or my territory, uh, my infrastructure, I would go with the one that gives me a better percentage, I would say.

normally invest investors would think like this. Yeah. So is there a way to like make this more attractive in the sense that you could think of, uh, if you digitize your territory or your city, let's say the city of Paris, you'll be able to store that part of your history, of your culture, of your city and monetize it with like what Rune was saying before: digital tours through space and time forever and ever.

And that's, that's kind of like putting the dollar sign in their minds in a way. Uh, I'm, I'm sure maybe you thought about this before, but is there something, is this something that could, could be viable? What do you guys think?

[00:40:56] Katrine Loen (AWA): Now it is of course, difficult to put a dollar sign behind the importance of history.

But, if you compare it to the cost of a keeping, data alive, for example, online, it's if it should keep something for like a hundred years, it's quite expensive. So, I think if you can imagine that you can just store your data and put it away, once and for all and take it back, it, uh, then you can have a look at the economical benefits of it.

[00:41:28] Mizter Rad: Mm. Okay. So it's about, it's about cutting expenses more than Mm.

[00:41:33] Katrine Loen (AWA): And also, uh, our solution is and much more environmentally, uh, friendly.

[00:41:39] Mizter Rad: Mm-hmm. . Okay. How is that?

[00:41:41] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): But I, I have a perspective on this because I've been to very many interesting archives in the world. Mm-hmm and I think this can be a super big source of revenue for the institutions, uh, that sits on the content.

They just need to make it available. And I saw a little article the other day about all the money which is spent by H B O, Netflix and Disney to create content because the world is so hungry for content and, and, and please excuse me, but, uh, there's a lot of crap content being created.

In the real world there is so much, so much drama. There is so much science. There is so much romance. There is so much content that is there that people have never seen. Just in that one giant library. Outside Ahmedabad, in Gujarat in India, there could be enough content to fill history channel for 10 of years. With things that would blow us away.

So with the right person. With the right perspective to kind of create a Netflix of human history. Culture. There is so much available. You just need to find it. You just need to convert it. You need to understand it and make it available. It'll be a huge source of revenue because people are hungry for real content.

It's there, but it's a little bit challenging to pick up. I have been into film archives. I remember once I was in Istanbul and uh, it was an amazing institution, amazing people, but I don't have any money. They showed me their film archive archive. It was a huge, huge basement. Imagine almost like a soccer field full of film cans dating back from the early twenties.

And this was at the time that the modern Turkey was created with, you know, the big father of Turkey, Atatürk. Yeah. And I'm sure there are golden nuggets in that archive that would make a fortune. But to have the funds to digitize it and make it accessible is always a challenge. So if you can spread this challenge to the philanthropists out there in the world with a big money, this is an investment that will pay back immensely.

That's my opinion. Hmm.

[00:44:03] Mizter Rad: So I'll, I'll go back to the sustainable part of, of things katrine, but I wanna touch, I wanna pick up on that, what you said just now Runne, because I think that what I see in the world developing is all these new technologies are making stuff cheaper. Stuff like digitizing a building or 3D scanning a whole city and Yep.

You know, creating a digital twin Yep on it is just getting cheaper. And you see a lot of companies like Snap, Snapchat or um, eighth Wall, which is owned by Niantic . They do augmented reality. Web augmented reality. And so they're very interested in scan. And I know of course you say you have Google Maps and stuff like that, scanning the cities, so they're very interested in creating these digital twins of pretty much everything.

And so I feel like the more, you know, corporations and, and companies invest and startups invest in this, and the more VC money goes into this, the more content we'll be able to put on the, sort of, on the cloud or on the internet, or at least digitize it, the cheaper it will get. So I, I kind of have a hope for picking out that story that you told about Turkey.

That all these museums in 50 years from now that are maybe in emerging countries that don't have the funding right now will have a technology maybe on their phones where they can just easily digitize everything they have. And there's gonna be so much, like you said, so many gold nuggets to explore, to break down into super cool, interesting content.

Cuz I, I agree with you that the world is full of shit content , we don't need that anymore. Uh, we don't need the TikTok, tikTok ERs, uh, around as much anymore. We need more stories that are beneficial and educative for all of us. Mm mm So, I, I have, I have, I have good feelings about this. I think technology is, is again, is getting cheaper and will help us, uh, digitize more and more.

And I think the trends are there. Mm-hmm. people are talking about digitizing everything now, which is, you know, some people see this as negative, but it has a lot of, uh, good, good things and good opportunities. Mm-hmm.

but Yeah.

Um, so when you digitize and, and, and we go to the sustainable part, I think with this, uh, when you digitize something and um, you store it in one of your vaults, it's stored there, right?

It's offline, it's off the grid.

[00:46:37] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes.

[00:46:38] Mizter Rad: Is that correct?

[00:46:38] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yeah. Correct.

[00:46:40] Mizter Rad: So now I'm a client and I wanna say, oh, I wanna retrieve it cuz I wanna. Okay, so first of all, I'm, I'm the client and I, I go there and let's say I'm the Museum of Brasilia, in Brazil and I'm storing some treasures of my country. I go and store a physical copy of my assets there in your vault and it's off of the grid.

So I'm paying much less and much more secure than if I would have it in the, in the cloud I guess. But I also wanna have it in the cloud because I want people to access virtually my museum. I guess this is possible, right? Is this something that institutions do? Is your clients do it like this or?

[00:47:21] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes. So we have made it now very easy to, first of all become a client.

You can do that online. So we in Piql, also have a cloud service so that you can upload your data. And then you can also do some value added services where you can add metadata. You can generate thumbnails. You can structure it. You can create like an archive so that you can easily search and find. That can remain, uh, available online as a part of the service.

But we also write the same thing onto films. We will have exactly the same metadata indexing information on the film. You can decide to keep everything online, but you can also decide to keep nothing online. Okay. Uh, you can also decide only to have the metadata online. So it's, it's, it's up to your choice.

If you want to have it instantly available, if you want to have it, uh, cold Archive online, or if you only want to have the metadata so that you can search and find, and then request a retrieval from the Piql film later on.

[00:48:22] Mizter Rad: Okay. Interesting. And so, When it comes to sustainability, why is this more sustainable than storing everything on the cloud?

[00:48:31] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes. When you store your data online, you need a lot of electricity to keep it alive. But when you store it on, uh, Piqlfilm, you store it once and you can just leave it there. So, for example, in, the Arctic World Archive, AWA, we do not, need any electricity to change the temperature inside the mine.

So, uh, we can just put the Piql films inside there, for hundredths of years. And, when you need it, you can just take it out.

[00:48:58] Mizter Rad: All right. And the does is, is the temperature something that helps preserve the film as well.

[00:49:05] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes, correct. It's, uh, around, uh, minus four degrees and that is ideal conditions for the film.

So it's, uh, cold and dark up there in the Arctic.

[00:49:15] Mizter Rad: Yeah. But when it, but it gets colder than, than four degrees, I guess.

[00:49:19] Katrine Loen (AWA): Oh, yes. Outside it does. In the winter wintertime, so it gets, uh, colder and dark.

[00:49:26] Mizter Rad: So what happens when, okay, the, the pitch dark is great I guess, for the film. But what happens when it goes really much, much less than minus four degrees?

[00:49:35] Katrine Loen (AWA): No, um, in the mine is you can imagine that, our Vault is placed 300 meters, inside the mountain. So the temperature there is, uh, very stable. Mm-hmm. So, uh, even though the temperature outside the mine is, um, getting warmer, it doesn't affect, the vault that much.

[00:49:55] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): So the vault is actually in the center of the permafrost because up in the Arctic there is permafrost that goes down 300 meters in, in the ground.

Mm-hmm. So this vault is, uh, 300 meter in and 300 meter below the top of the mountain. So it's actually at the center of the permafrost. So it's a very stable temperature.

[00:50:16] Mizter Rad: So it doesn't, doesn't fluctuate much, the temperature?

[00:50:19] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): No, it doesn't. Doesn't fluctuate much And. I mean, we have done, done, all our longevity testing is actually done in, uh, computer room environment, 21 degrees Celsius, 50% relative humidity.

And there the lifetime of the film has been tested through accelerated aging of be a thousand years. Mm-hmm. . But the very unique thing about this medium is actually the colder the better. So when you store it in, in, uh, that vault, which is minus four, uh, we have actually got now a confirmation from a test made by the Norwegian defense research establishment that definitely 2000 years is, is a lifetime, which is reachable.

[00:51:01] Mizter Rad: Hmm, interesting. Yeah. So it's not... it's more than a thousand years. In theory.

[00:51:06] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It's more okay. And the colder the better. The colder the.

[00:51:10] Mizter Rad: And, uh, are you afraid of global warming, I guess?

[00:51:14] Katrine Loen (AWA): Uh, no. Uh, no. In general, of course, of course. But, not, concerned, when it comes to, uh, keeping the, uh, the data alive on Piql film.

But for humanity, of course, right. Global warming is not a good thing.

[00:51:29] Mizter Rad: Right. Okay. So if, if Svalbard is the perfect place to store humanity's most precious assets because of the weather, for example, why, what are the other reasons why Svalbard is perfect for storing these assets?

[00:51:44] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes. , Svalbard is, just an amazing, place.

It's a breathtaking place. It's so beautiful up there. And that doesn't harm mm-hmm. But, uh, it has also a very interesting, uh, history. Uh, the island was discovered back in, um, 5... 15 96 by a Dutch guy called Willem Barentsz. Mm-hmm. , uh, and he, he started then to do understand how rich this island is when it comes to, um, natural resources.

So, after a while they began some activities up there, uh, a lot of mining. But, there were actually no one that owned, uh, the island. And, during the early 1900, it was, Norway understood that this place needs to be regulated. And Norway tried, three times. They are arranged like something called a Christiania conference.

But they did not manage to get other countries on the table to agree upon a agreement that regulated, uh, the island. But, during the first World War, there were a lot of, chaotic things happening in Europe. And after the war Europe would like to get all the land or borders in order.

And then Norway, were given the, sovereignty of, the island and that is written down in something that is called, uh, the Svalbard Treaty. That was signed in 1920. And that means that Norway, and Norway laws, um, is then governing, Svalbard, and it is not, uh, allowed to have any military activities up there.

And, the treaty was signed by over 40 countries. Everybody is actually allowed to go up there. And, uh, work there and, uh, have, uh, economical, uh, activities up there.

[00:53:39] Mizter Rad: What do you mean that everybody can go there and work there?

[00:53:42] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes. You don't need, uh, visa to go up there.

[00:53:46] Mizter Rad: So, uh, you just need a big jacket, I guess.

[00:53:48] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes, correct. and, and a gun. And a gun, yes.

[00:53:52] Mizter Rad: And a gun. A gun? What do you mean a gun?

[00:53:54] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes. This place has more polar bears than people. So there are over, 3000 polar bear up there and a little bit, uh, around, uh, 2,400 people or inhabitants. So if you would like to, uh, walk outside the city center. It's prohibited to, uh, to have a weapon.

So what we say is that, uh, our vault is really secure because it's guarded by the polar bears.

[00:54:24] Mizter Rad: Oh, wow. But wait, so they're polar bear on the street? I mean...

[00:54:28] Katrine Loen (AWA): yes. It's just a few years back they were, uh, spotted at polar bear during night, walking down the main street in Longyearbyen . And also just below the airport there are, camping place where a guy got killed.

I think that is two, three years back now.

[00:54:44] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Dutch guy, he was taken for breakfast, actually.

[00:54:47] Mizter Rad: Oh my goodness. Mm-hmm. .

[00:54:50] Katrine Loen (AWA): So you need to be careful of that.

[00:54:51] Mizter Rad: It's too early in the morning to get killed. .

[00:54:53] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yeah, that's true.

But you can say what is really good about the island there, there's, uh, hardly no, uh, crimes committed up there.

[00:55:01] Mizter Rad: Hmm. Okay. So it's, it is, it's, the island is the most secure you can get, basically. Yes. Also, cuz there's not many human beings.

[00:55:09] Katrine Loen (AWA): No, it's not.

[00:55:11] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It's really remote. It's really controlled who is getting in and out, right. Because you can arrive either on the harbor or you can arrive with a plane. Hmm. So everybody knows everything and, We think it's one of the most secure places actually in the world, because to be regulated by an international treaty accepted by all the superpowers. To be a demilitarized zone, is a very strong thing.

Mm-hmm.

[00:55:38] Katrine Loen (AWA): And also it is Norway's responsibility, uh, to, uh, preserve, uh, the Svalbard environment.

[00:55:46] Mizter Rad: So you mean the, the environment you mean the, the, the way the, the city, the town works or the natural environment?

[00:55:53] Katrine Loen (AWA): Natural environment as well. So it's, uh, quite strictly regulated, um, like snow mobile, uh, driving out in the wilderness.

So, uh, nor it's Norway's task to keep the nature intact, to not get destroyed.

[00:56:11] Mizter Rad: What kind of jobs do people get there? Like what kind of occupations they have? The locals?

[00:56:17] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yeah. Uh, Original, this was like, uh, a mining town. Uh, so a lot of, uh, people were working in the mines. And nowadays a lot of people are working in the tourist industry.

And there is also, uh, local government that is, uh, elected. So some people work there. And you have a little, uh, hospital up there. And you have schools. And different shops and you have tour guides. Yeah. So it's a different kind of occupations, but, there are, uh, it used to be over 50 different nations, uh, living up there.

I think now it's a little bit, uh, uh, left after the, um, pandemic. Mm-hmm. . But it's really, uh, like a melting pot society with a lot of, uh, different cultures and people.

[00:57:04] Mizter Rad: So, is the main language Norwegian or is it English? Um,

[00:57:08] Katrine Loen (AWA): I think officially it's Norwegian, but in uh, practice I will say it's English.

[00:57:15] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yeah. 50 nationalities.

Yeah. You have like, uh, sushi restaurants. You know, Tapas restaurants. It's a very international community. It is. And Fantastical health. And we've been up there, we had people working in the restaurants. Katrina from... was the one from Colombia. Colombia. There is a, there's a lady there from Colombia. Yeah. Taxi driver is it?

Mm-hmm. And there's uh, there was a servant from Japan, you know, all over the world. Uh, the super

[00:57:41] Mizter Rad: interesting. And why did maybe the Colombian person went there cuz they don't need a visa. Yeah. I'm kidding cuz we, we need visas for everywhere, but, um Okay. That's super, that's super interesting.

I mean, um, so what are, so what are the main threats if it's, we are talking about a very safe environment where all these assets are stored, but, uh, what are the main threats when it comes to the, the location itself? What, what do you think?

[00:58:12] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): I think it's, it's, um, it's perceived to be very, very secure place. Mm-hmm.

Uh, I mean, one of the inspirations we had to establish the vault up there was actually the global seed vault. Mm-hmm. And basically the world is entrusting, uh, Norway and Svalbard and the global seed vault, to preserve all the seeds of the important plants of the world for secure food supply in the future.

So, I mean, having that trust established is a quite strong point. And then we felt, you know, the Arctic World Archive, could also benefit from that trust already built around first of all, Norway is a quite trusted country. It's a stable democracy. And then this island has been there, it's very stable climate. It's geopolitically well regulated.

So if you look at the world and all these kind of conflicts and crisis internally and between countries, you know, it's a very, very special, unique place.

[00:59:13] Katrine Loen (AWA): And to make it even more secure, uh, we are now in the process of turning, uh, AWA into a foundation.

Non-for-profit.

[00:59:22] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Self own foundation. Yeah.

[00:59:25] Mizter Rad: Self-fund foundation?

[00:59:26] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Self-owned foundation.

[00:59:28] Mizter Rad: A self-owned Ah, nice. Okay.

[00:59:30] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It's the whole idea because the whole idea, because. Piql will become a very popular company. And you know, we are entrepreneurs. You know, one day somebody might walk in here with a billion dollar and say, we wanna buy this fantastic technology.

And you say yes. And we might, we might consider. It depends, you never know. But the point is that we, we want the will archive to be its own thing. Right? Uh, so now we started the process actually to convert the whole thing into this foundation. Mm. Uh, with the purpose of preserving the client's data forever.

Also, uh, establishing funds so that we can contribute to those institutions and countries that actually, as I mentioned, they lack funds to help them to actually preserve their memories so that certain cultures, languages, indigenous, uh, people can actually have a chance to be kept, uh, for the future without having the necessary funds themselves.

So our hope is to raise significant capital, you know, from philanthropists around the world to do this, uh, thing for the, for the benefit of the world.

[01:00:34] Mizter Rad: That's definitely a very good idea. That's definitely fantastic. Yeah, I think impact investing is a big thing. Uh, and hopefully more and more impact investors pop up mm-hmm.

As opposed to the regular VCs. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. . Um, so I think that's definitely, uh, I think it's a good move. So now let's,

[01:00:54] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): this is a unique combination here because it's an impact investment, but it's also actually the chance to create content and distribute and share content. Right. Creating actually a revenue source for institutions so they can have more money to spend for more digitization.

More restoration. More preservation.

[01:01:15] Mizter Rad: Yeah. Have you ever talked to...

[01:01:17] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): self, self-finance loop.

[01:01:18] Mizter Rad: Mm-hmm. , have you ever talked to companies like Netflix that produce content like crazy and they're super interested in content preserving and creating content themselves?

[01:01:30] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): We should, we should. Do you have any contacts?

[01:01:33] Mizter Rad: Well, maybe , maybe maybe the CEO would listen to this episode. Let's see. Yeah. .

[01:01:38] Katrine Loen (AWA): And the next opportunity is then, uh, in the end of, uh, June, then we will have another, uh, deposit.

[01:01:45] Mizter Rad: So, so what happens in the deposit? Tell us Katrine.

[01:01:48] Katrine Loen (AWA): Yes. That is, um, we both have like this, uh, official program and a social program.

So, the, the official program is that everybody that are going to deposit data are invited to, uh, ceremony. And, uh, there they can present their, uh, valuable items, and they will then, By themselves, put their data into the vault. Or you can also attend online at the online ceremony. And, uh, we also have, like, we invite our, all our guests to go, uh, swimming.

Uh, they have a nice sauna up there called SvalBad but, uh, where we go in and get really hot and then we jump out in the water, uh, between, uh, ice and, okay no polar bears in the water at that time, of course. Uh, so it's, no, it's really a nice experience.

[01:02:43] Mizter Rad: Nice. I've done this in, uh, Finland, uh, yeah. In a town called Oulu, before.

Uh, it's, it's, it's a crazy, it's a crazy experience. . It's,

[01:02:52] Katrine Loen (AWA): it's, and also, uh, in addition to that, you will then, uh, be able to meet, um, other people like you that also care about taking care of, uh, the world's history.

So there are a lot of nice discussions and, uh, lectures going on up there then.

[01:03:09] Mizter Rad: Cool. And this is the 29th of June of 2023. Correct. Fantastic. Let's wrap up with the following crazy scenarios. Let's play the following. So imagine, let's say there's a big world event, a war that destroys a great part of the population and the planet. Do you think the Arctic World Archive will survive?

[01:03:35] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes.

[01:03:36] Mizter Rad: Good. That's what I was hoping.

[01:03:39] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): it, it will, it, it's first of all, you know, it's the place where it is. Right? Uh, also it's physically extremely well protected, you know, inside, deep inside the mountain. Uh, so also due to the technology, which is immune to any electromagnetic radiation, immune to radioactive radiation, I mean, if energy is cut off, it doesn't matter.

It'll still be there. You can just imagine a data center, if that is within, without energy for a few hours, it'll shut down. It'll be gone. Because you lose the data, you will not be able to do your backups. And if the hard discs are standing still too long, you cannot spin them up again. Uh, if there is electromagnetic weapons used, all the data on magnetic tape will be wiped out, even if there's a strong solar storm that could wipe out, uh, data.

So it's such a durable. and, and, uh, solid technology that it'll, it will withstand a lot of the threats that would kill data otherwise.

[01:04:39] Mizter Rad: What about a large meteorite crashing with our planet? Do you think we, we get to the other side with the Arctic World Archive as well?

[01:04:48] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Well, if that large meteorite crashes on top of the Plateau Mountain, where we have the vault, I cannot actually give you any guarantees because I never experienced a large meteorite crash.

Right. But then I think you might not even need that information. But we have a plan to contact Elon Musk and also to establish, uh, a repository on Mars.

[01:05:13] Mizter Rad: Oh, that's super interesting. That's very ambitious. Good for you. Yes. But why not? Of course. That's how it should be. Yes. Should all be more ambitious.

Yeah. What about, is it, is it AWA, is it the Arctic World archive, alien proof? Now talking about aliens this late, late last weeks, last month, what if they come and they find the treasures? Do you think they can crack them?

[01:05:40] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): I think they will be impressed, to learn and understand everyth, uh, about everything there.

Uh, but they can never fake it. They can never overwrite it. They can never do anything with it. I mean, in theory, they could of course, break in and destroy it in theory. Um, but why would they do that? Because it would be, uh, entertainment for them, right? To learn about this crazy planet, how it was, uh, a few hundred years back.

That would be, uh, interesting.

[01:06:11] Mizter Rad: Absolutely. I mean, it's interesting already. See all this craziness, but imagine 200, 500 years from now, you look back and you see Yeah. Everything that we are doing is, uh, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. And at the same time, crazy.

[01:06:26] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Yes, it is. So we are taking kind of a step back. Making things physical. Making things tangible. Making things simple. Making things robust.

It's a bit in the other direction of, you know, commodities, smaller, faster, cheaper. Right. But our perspective is different and we think the world needs such a perspective.

[01:06:47] Mizter Rad: Right. The perspective of putting stuff that is valuable off the grid and securing it for as long as possible.

[01:06:55] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Exactly.

[01:06:56] Mizter Rad: Nice. All right.

Rune, Katrine,, it was a great pleasure to have you here. I really appreciate you coming. I'm very thankful and grateful that we managed to talk. And it was very insightful. I learned a lot from you. Thank you so much.

[01:07:11] Katrine Loen (AWA): Thank you so much for having us. Great honor.

[01:07:14] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): It's been great fun. I mean, you asking a lot of good questions.

Thank you. And I hope that you, uh, some of your listeners will reflect on this and maybe they think they should make, uh, a contribution to world memory. Make sure it's once.

[01:07:27] Mizter Rad: Absolutely. Maybe we meet up on the 29th of June and say hello to the polar bears.

[01:07:33] Katrine Loen (AWA): Oh, you're more than welcome.

[01:07:36] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Bring the first 20 episodes.

[01:07:38] Mizter Rad: Oh, yeah. That, that would be so cool actually. I'm gonna definitely look into tickets now. Mm-hmm.

[01:07:44] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): do that.

[01:07:44] Mizter Rad: Cool.

[01:07:45] Rune Bjerkestrand (AWA): Okay.

[01:07:45] Katrine Loen (AWA): Okay. See you soon then.