The Centre for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism invites you to "The Kitchen Series" a series of Friday seminars providing a collaborative forum to engage with researchers and their projects on the digitisation of data and the use of digitised archival resources.
 
The first in the series for this semester will take place on the topic of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)  Archives Digitalization Programme, with speakers: Nicole Martins-Maag, Christian Vogg, and Ismaël Raboud. 
 

Abstract

Ever since its creation in 1863, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has endeavoured to document and preserve its work, leading to the building of a rich and unique archival collection on humanitarian action and the development of international humanitarian law (IHL). Recording its action was not only seen as key to prove its aims, but to ensure its continuity and comply with increasing legal requirements. It also became evident that understanding, learning about, and questioning its past has shaped the ICRC’s present.

As the ICRC increasingly digitises its operations and work modalities, records with archival value are predominantly created digitally, produced in an ever-increasing volume with multiple applications on different platforms. To ensure that its knowledge – past and present – is preserved and accessible, the ICRC has launched an ambitious Archives Digitalization Programme. This includes digitising several kilometres of paper archives, implementing a digital preservation system, and using digital technology and artificial intelligence to make archival records searchable and usable over the long term.

The presentation will discuss the various elements of the programme, the challenges of paper becoming data, and the opportunities and risks while using artificial intelligence for the automated processing, analysis, and exploration of archival records.

Speakers: 

• Nicole Martins-Maag leads the ICRC’s Archives, Library and Law & Policy Outreach, valorizing ICRC heritage, knowledge and thought leadership. She graduated from the Geneva Graduate Institute and joined the ICRC in 2006 where she held various roles, including managing youth education and youth violence prevention programmes, outreach to law and policy circles as well as digital transformation projects. Keen to bringing a female perspective into financial decision-making, she also serves as the President of the ICRC’s Pension Fund.
• Christian Vogg joined ICRC at the beginning of 2025 and, as Head of General Archives, primarily takes care of the data-driven aspects of archive transformation. He looks back on a long career as a journalist and data manager and has held various management positions in public broadcasting in Germany, Switzerland and at European level. From numerous projects, he is aware of the opportunities, but also the hurdles that digital transformation brings with it, and he loves not only finding creative solutions together with the respective teams, but also implementing them.
• Ismaël Raboud holds an MA in international relations and an MS in information science. He joined the ICRC library in 2007, where he has served as head of project for its reorganization, overseen the preservation and digitization of over 7,000 statutory meeting documents, and contributed to the launch of the new platform for IHL databases, among other collective achievements. He was appointed head of the ICRC Library and Public archives in 2024, where he is pursuing the digitization of the library and archival collections to make them widely accessible.