Roadmap

A 20-Year Project.

Pre's work is measured in decades, not quarters. Here is how we get from three countries to a global standard for record preservation.

Current

Phase 1: Prove the Model

  • Burundi, Republic of Congo, and Tanzania — establish partnerships and build scanning methodology.
  • Launch archives.bi as the first public-facing digital archive.
  • Secure FamilySearch indexing partnership for Burundi civil records.
  • Build and refine the Pre digitization methodology through direct field experience.
  • Demonstrate that low-cost, community-driven digitization produces archival-quality results.

Near-Term

Phase 2: Scale Across Africa

  • Identify the next 10 countries on the African continent with no digital archives infrastructure.
  • Build satellite nonprofit partnerships and local organizational capacity in each new country.
  • Train local teams on the Pre scanning methodology and archive management.
  • Target: 1,000,000 records digitized across all active countries.
  • Develop shared technology platform for cross-country archive search and access.

Medium-Term

Phase 3: Go Global

  • Expand to South America, Southeast Asia, and Pacific Islands.
  • Serve rural and indigenous communities in developed nations — United States, Canada, Australia.
  • Launch the Pre Convention — an annual international conference recognizing preservation work worldwide.
  • Build partnerships with UNESCO, the African Union, and other international bodies.

Long-Term

Phase 4: Preserve the Present

  • Move beyond historical records into ongoing civic documentation.
  • Partner with communities to build digital-first public record systems from day one.
  • News preservation — ensure local journalism and community media are archived.
  • Living archives — systems that grow and update as communities generate new records.

Vision

Phase 5: The Protocol

  • Publish the Pre methodology as an open protocol for record digitization and preservation.
  • "This is how you build 21st-century public infrastructure."
  • Any government, NGO, or community organization can adopt and implement the protocol.
  • Pre shifts from operator to standard-setter — the work continues without us.

This is a 20-year project.
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