Chao Tayiana Maina

Founder & Digital Heritage Specialist

African Digital Heritage

Speaker Biography

Chao Tayiana Maina is a Kenyan historian and digital heritage specialist working at the intersection of memory, digital humanities and public education.With a background in computing and specialisation in heritage studies, her work is dedicated to excavating African histories whilst building the infrastructure needed for their preservation and dissemination. She uses digital technologies to unearth previously hidden or suppressed historical narratives, enabling communities to actively engage with their cultural heritage and centring African histories within digital spaces.

Chao is the founder of African Digital Heritage, a Nairobi-based non-profit organisation that promotes holistic digital practice within African cultural heritage. She is also co-founder of the Museum of British Colonialism and co-founder of Open Restitution Africa, an open data project making accessible information on the restitution of African material culture and human ancestors.

She was also a fellow of the Yale Institute of Cultural Heritage Preservation (2023–2025) and Public Historian in Residence at the University of Luxembourg (2023).

View all speakers