Najam Ul Assar

Change Agent, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Environmentalist, Event planner, Foodie, Social entrepreneur

Najam Ul Assar is a PhD candidate in Digital Humanities at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on developing SADA, an innovative archive of digital arts for South Asia. As the visionary founder of the Lahore Digital Arts Festival, Najam is at the forefront of creating vibrant spaces for digital creativity and innovation in Pakistan. With a distinguished academic background in Media Arts Histories, which he pursued through a prestigious Erasmus Mundus Grant, Najam brings a unique perspective to the intersection of technology, art, and cultural heritage. His scholarly work delves into the intricate ethics of digitizing public heritage, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous communities. Najam's interdisciplinary approach seamlessly blends his passion for digital arts with a steadfast commitment to preserving and promoting cultural heritage in the digital age.

decolonizing digital spaces and ensuring that diverse cultures and creative practices shape the next generation of technologies.

SADA—the South Asian Digital Arts Archive—argues that to build a just technological future, we must begin by rebuilding the archive itself. Today’s digital infrastructures privilege Western languages, aesthetics, and histories, leaving South Asian digital artists—and their stories—at the margins of the algorithm. SADA offers a radical alternative: a multilingual, community-governed, post-colonial archive that treats artists not as subjects but as co-authors of their own digital futures. By preserving overlooked narratives, local knowledge systems, and diverse aesthetic traditions, SADA demonstrates that decolonizing technology is not theory—it is practice. And when we change who the archive remembers, we change how the algorithm sees the world.

Archives, Artificial Intelligence, Arts Management, Digital Arts

My TED story began years ago when I watched my first TED Talk and felt completely confused—so I watched another, and instantly fell in love. Since then, TED has shaped the way I think, create, and connect with the world. I’ve organized multiple TEDx events, built communities around ideas worth spreading, and even attended a TED event in 2014. TED has been a constant source of inspiration, and now I hope to contribute back to the platform that helped shape my journey.

Building communities around emerging technologies, especially in places where these conversations are often overlooked.