Working at the Intersection of Tech and Heritage: Why It Matters
When you picture a tech company, you probably don’t think of people talking about 17th-century manuscripts, contemporary art, or best practices for recording artifact movements. At Keepthinking, those conversations happen every day. Heritage isn’t just what our clients work with - it shapes the way we design and build our tools.
Heritage Meets Technology
Working between technology and heritage is at the heart of the way we make software that museums, archives, galleries, private collections, and libraries can actually use. Collections teams have a very particular set of needs: accuracy, preservation, ethics, context and long-term access. They also face plenty of challenges, whether that’s decades’ worth of messy data, limited budgets, or balancing the expectations of curators, researchers, and their audiences. Standard tech solutions don’t usually take all of this into account - they don’t have the experience backing them to do so. This is why Qi is different: it adapts to real workflows, instead of forcing people to adapt.
A Team That Understands Both Worlds
Many of us at Keepthinking started our careers in humanities and heritage before moving into tech. We’ve catalogued artworks, packed crates, worked with object records, run gallery tours, and designed buildings and exhibitions. With backgrounds in roles across archives, museums, archaeological sites, architecture and private collections, our experience changes how we listen. When a client explains why a field has to be mandatory, or why a workflow is non-negotiable, we understand the reasoning behind it.
Building Tools With Purpose
Every feature we design, every website we build, connects back to real people making collections more accessible, discoverable, and sustainable. We’re not building software in isolation - we’re helping institutions safeguard history, culture, and memory. That mix of technical expertise and heritage knowledge makes our work more meaningful. In today’s world, where digital infrastructure is just as - if not more - critical than physical storage, that responsibility feels more important than ever.
Looking Ahead
As digital needs evolve, we’ll keep developing Qi in collaboration with the people who use it every day. The best solutions don’t come from technology alone: they come from listening, learning, and working side by side with those who care about heritage as much as we do.
At Keepthinking, that’s what the intersection of tech and heritage means: not a balancing act, but a unique and enriching place where meaningful tools and lasting relationships are created.