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LIVING HERITAGE
RECLAIMING CULTURAL MEMORY THROUGH IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES

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AI-generated image

Thu November 12, 2026 02:00 pm CET

Who gets to preserve, interpret and tell our cultural memory?

Immersive technologies are opening new ways to keep heritage alive, but also raise questions about whose stories are remembered and how they are carried into the future.

Bringing together perspectives from Africa, the Caribbean and Europe, Marta Minguell Colomé, Danelson Maldonado and Paul Simon Waiyaki, guided by cultural anthropologist Anne Seubert, explore how XR can reconnect people with cultural knowledge. Marta’s Inner Code Alchemy reimagines pre-colonial knowledge systems of Kemet as a living digital archive; Danelson’s Infinite Borikua reconnects with Puerto Rico’s Taíno heritage; while Paul brings Kenyan artists and their work into virtual spaces through photogrammetry.

Can immersive worlds become places where cultural memory is not simply preserved, but reclaimed and kept alive?

Format

Panel Discussion + Experience

App

ENGAGE

Duration

45 min

Access via

Presenter

Marta Minguell Colomé
New Media Artist

Marta Minguell Colomé (Soulstice) is a new media artist, designer, and researcher based between Barcelona and Accra. Her practice works across installation, culture, and experience; exploring existence and consciousness through the intersection of quantum mechanics and spiritual practice, and tracing how pattern, recursion, and algorithmic logic are the latest expression of a much older human impulse to comprehend the laws of nature and connect with the divine. She treats light, screen, matter, and code as agential forces, never neutral, always carriers of relation, memory, and meaning.

Danelson Maldonado
CEO & Creative Director at Spatialgineers LLC

Danelson Maldonado, known in the industry as The Highgineer, is the CEO and Creative Director of Spatialgineers LLC, a pioneering techno-creative studio in Puerto Rico. A mechanical engineer by trade, he applies engineering precision to the creation of immersive worlds, XR, and AI-driven environments. His core vision is to transform passive spectators into active participants using the SGX Framework. He has led global milestones, such as representing Caribbean culture at the MVFW’25 with ‘Infinite Borikua’ and revolutionizing digital tourism at FITUR Madrid 2026. One of his core missions with SGX is to democratize technology and pave the way for the next generation of spatial architects.

Paul Simon Waiyaki
Founder at Africa VR Campus and Center

Paul Simon Waiyaki began his career in 1999 as an educator, pioneering the use of technology in teaching. In 2012, he founded VOFCIN to address challenges faced by African children. He became the first African in virtual reality in 2016, subsequently establishing The Africa VR Campus and Center. In 2019, he hosted a mainstream Metaverse event live from Africa and has since organized the only weekly African metaverse event. In 2022, he launched VR & Space programs tailored for African youth and learners. Mr. Waiyaki has received numerous awards and honorary mentions within the XR Community, including a United Nations Honorary Mention for his contributions to the Metaverse for SDGs program. 

Moderator

Anne Seubert
Managing Director at Brands & Places
© Michael Redeligx

As an experienced leader, passionate incubator and accomplished process facilitator, Anne Seubert builds the conditions in which people, organisations and ideas can enter the stage, create impact and fulfil their mission. together. Through Brands & Places, she works at the intersection of leadership, community building and organisational development — designing systems, spaces and formats for transformation.

She has been part of IMMERSIVE X from the beginning, usually behind the scenes: as sparring partner, connector and co-creator alongside Thomas Zorbach. In 2026, she steps on stage with him — opening a festival whose theme they shaped together: RECLAIM THE FUTURE.

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