JTS2026
Program Overview

Program Overview

The symposium runs over two days and combines oral presentations, panel discussions, and opportunities to connect with colleagues. Below is the high-level structure; a full program with detailed session times and speakers is now available to view and download.

Keynote Speaker

Headshot of Brecht Declercq

Brecht Declercq

Head of Archives at RSI, Switzerland's Italian-language public broadcaster

Preserved, Postitioned, Powered. A New Strategic Mandate for Audiovisual Archives.

Audiovisual archives have shifted from closed vaults to active nodes in a global knowledge ecosystem. The first challenge — making sure that archives are Preserved —was defined by urgency: ageing carriers, vanishing playback equipment, and degralescence hitting hardest in vulnerable regions. Large‑scale digitisation and shared responses proved that preservation is a threshold, not a destination, and that collaboration, common workflows and aligned standards are operational necessities.
The second challenge — making sure that audiovisual archives are Positioned — is today’s mandate: archives act as societal actors, not merely custodians. They enter public debates on AI training data, legitimacy and reuse; they serve as cultural reference points and research infrastructures; they help set ethical and legal guardrails where memory and technology intersect. This is the present tense of stewardship: being distinctive, relevant and believable.

The third challenge — making sure that audiovisual archives are Powered — looks forward: archives boost their value for society by contributing to answers for societal challenges: sustaining cultural memory, shaping identity narratives responsibly, and supporting social emancipation. This demands durable partnerships across sectors, governance that aligns with equity and transparency, and designs that are resilient under climate and resource constraints. When archives operate as networks rather than silos, today’s problems become levers: they unlock meaningful, safe and accessible heritage. Now, and for the next hundred years.

Brecht Declercq is Head of Archives at RSI, Switzerland’s Italian-language public broadcaster. His work bridges hands-on archiving, large-scale digitisation and international policy. He began his career as a radio archivist at the Flemish public broadcaster VRT and as a policy researcher at FARO, the Flemish interface organisation for cultural heritage. From 2008 to 2013, he led the digitisation of VRT’s radio archives, and from 2013 to 2022 oversaw the digitisation of Flemish audiovisual heritage at meemoo, the Flemish Institute for Archives. At FIAT/IFTA, the global association of media archives, Brecht served as Chair of the Preservation and Migration Commission (2017–2019), General Secretary (2017–2020) and President (2020–2024). He is an active contributor to the international field as an author and reviewer, conference curator, speaker and keynote, guest lecturer, expert panel member and policy advisor, with a strong focus on the future of audiovisual preservation, documentation and access.

“I hope to see audiovisual archive colleagues from around the world joining us, in Canberra or online, this 3-4 March for the 11th Joint Technical Symposium. After several strong JTS editions, this remains one of the few places where audiovisual archivists, engineers and technologists really get into the nuts and bolts of audiovisual preservation. From formats and workflows to emerging tech and long-term access, JTS is where practical experience meets future thinking. If AV preservation is your thing, this is definitely one to put on your calendar.”

Presenters

Get to know some of the presenters contributing to sessions across the symposium.
Hover on each one to read their biography.

Headshot of Fabio Bedoya

Fabio Bedoya

Peru

“I value conferences like JTS because they are dedicated to the open exchange of technical knowledge, allowing expertise developed within institutions to be shared more broadly across the audiovisual archival community.”

Fabio Bedoya is a film restoration technician and colorist specializing in digital preservation, color recovery, and machine learning assisted restoration workflows. His work focuses on developing practical, transparent tools for archival environments, with an emphasis on locally trained models, ethical data use, and reproducible processes. Fabio regularly presents and teaches internationally, sharing applied research on chroma reconstruction, spatial recovery, and restoration automation for small and large archives.

Headshot of Andrew Boyer

Andrew Boyer

Australia

“The Joint Technical Symposiums have actively prevented the loss of important collections and continue to be a vital model for sharing information in today’s fast changing environment.”

Andrew Boyer is a Curator at the NFSA, with nearly 20-years experience in the Film and Television industry. As the former Team Lead of Video Digitisation, Andrew has overseen the digitisation of both NFSA and other National Collecting Institution’s video collections. Andrew is currently working on D25: Headspace, ensuring Australia’s magnetic media can continue to be digitised into the future. He is also co-ordinating the digitisation of the NFSA’s preservation queues across all mediums and developing ways the Film Australia Collection can become more accessible to the public.

Headshot of Charles Fairall

Charles Fairall

United Kingdom

“Having had the honour of attending JTS both as a delegate and speaker on a number of occasions through my career, I very often reflect on the tremendous value of periodically gathering together the thoughts, ideas and actions of those influencing technical decisions which invariably go on to benefit the entire audio visual archive community.”

Charles Fairall is a career archivist, having held operational, leadership and senior management roles at the BFI National Archive for over 40 years. With a broadcast technology and engineering background, he has been central to the BFI’s strategies, which over a generation helped shape the transition from analogue to digital working practices across film and videotape conservation, preservation, restoration and digital access programmes In his current role, Charles has particular interest in knowledge sharing across all aspects of magnetic based collections and in broader terms addressing the day-to-day challenges associated with maintaining conservation equipment in the face of ever-increasing obsolescence. Significant projects over the past 40 years which Charles has played pivotal roles in include: creation and evolution of the UK's national television archive; innovation of the BFI master film store; technical leadership of national lottery-funded digitisation of 10,000 films and 100,000 videotapes alongside creation of a digital presevation infrastructure.

Headshot of Richard Falkner

Richard Falkner

New Zealand

Richard Falkner has been part of the Film Team at Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision for sixteen years, joining the workforce at the moment that digital film preservation came into sharp focus. Richard has preserved numerous titles, across several film gauges, from Super-8 and 9.5mm home movie collections to 35mm feature films. Included amongst these are unique nitrate footage and physically challenging vinegar syndrome-affected titles. Richard has also worked as a musician, actor, sound designer and film maker, with several short and feature film credits to his name.

Headshot of Sebastian Gliga

Sebastian Gliga

Switzerland

"The continued preservation and digitization of audiovisual carriers will increasingly require technical innovations beyond conventional playback machines and workflows. I am looking forward to JTS, which brings archivists, conservators, and engineers together to share practical solutions and lessons learned. It’s a great opportunity to learn about the latest approaches, common challenges, and state-of-the-art digitization methods."

Sebastian Gliga is a physicist at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. He grew up in Canada and earned his PhD in Germany, working on nanomagnetism. He currently uses X-rays to study the magnetic properties of materials at the nanoscale — tens of thousands of times thinner than a human hair. Sebastian’s passion for recorded audio was sparked by his mother, a musician, and is grounded in physics. He leads the development of an X-ray based technique to recover signals from degraded magnetic tapes and collaborates closely with the Montreux Jazz Digital Project (Switzerland) and the British Film Institute (UK) on preservation efforts.

Headshot of Jörg Houpert

Jörg Houpert

Germany

“The Joint Technical Symposium is the most effective forum for members of the global audiovisual archival community seeking a deeper understanding of the technical aspects and new approaches in our field. The technological upheavals facing audiovisual archives have never been greater than they are today. Given the combination of technological obsolescence and dwindling expertise in the professional handling of historical media, as well as the risks and opportunities presented by new, highly complex technologies, there is a great need for a regular forum focused on professional, technological exchange. Let's meet in Canberra!”

Jörg Houpert studied electrical engineering with a focus on psychoacoustics and digital signal processing at the University of Bremen. To support international media archives, Houpert founded Cube-Tec International in 2005. In his role as Head of Technology, he is committed to introducing superior concepts for safeguarding the global audiovisual cultural heritage and creating enhanced solutions for media workflows. Houpert is an active member of the FIAT/IFTA Preservation and Migration Committee. He is a personal supporter of the FIAF. He has been a member of the IASA Technical Committee for more than 25 years. He has experience in standardisation work at international, European and national level (SMPTE/CEN/DIN). As a project manager, he has led several European and National research projects to success and holds several patents in the field of digital signal processing and archiving technology. His continuous pioneering work has led to working relationships with the most renowned and demanding media technology institutions around the globe. Since the introduction of QUADRIGA as the world's first quality-controlled large-scale migration solution for audiovisual media in 1996 and the presentation of the underlying technology at the JTS Paris in 2000, he has been a regular speaker at the JTS for more than 25 years.

Headshot of Dr Victor Kabata

Dr Victor Kabata

United Arab Emirates

"JTS provides a vital forum for archivists and conservators to expand collaborative networks and share collective strategies needed to safeguard fragile audio-visual heritage."

Victor Kabata is an Assistant Professor at the Records Management and Archival Science Program in the History Department at Sorbonne University, Abu Dhabi (SUAD). He teaches archives and records management at Bachelors and master’s level. Currently, he is involved in research on the Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to improve health outcomes in the UAE with specific focus on Abu Dhabi Health Information Exchange platform. His other research interests include responsible and sustainable AI; as well as the use of emerging technologies such as Piql to safeguard vulnerable audio-visual archives. His latest publication on ‘Implementation of AI at the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum’ was published in the April 2025 issue of the Swiss Electronic Journal of Information Science (RESSI).

Headshot of Cynde Moya

Cynde Moya

Australia

Headshot of Joshua Ng

Joshua Ng

New Zealand

Joshua Ng is a Digital Preservation Analyst specialising in digital audiovisual preservation at Archives New Zealand. For five years, he was involved in a project that led to the preservation of 70,000 at-risk audiovisual magnetic media. Wearing multiple hats, he informed procurement, planned infrastructure and workflows, helped designed quality control (QC) and validation processes, and wrangled metadata. 

Headshot of Kate Roberts

Kate Roberts

New Zealand

Kate joined Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision in 2019 and began working on the Utaina Project in 2020, becoming Director in 2024. Kate has worked in the NZ and Australian GLAM sector in a range of roles from conservator and preservation manager to library manager and art gallery programme manager. Kate first ventured into audiovisual preservation while working for the Kimberley Language Resource Centre in Hall's Creek, with their collection of linguistic research recordings. The Utaina Project provided the opportunity to work on a larger scale, helping to digitise the national TV and radio collections held by Ngā Taonga. With Utaina finishing in December 2025 Kate will be moving to the role of Strategic Advisor - Archiving at Ngā Taonga.

Headshot of Lara Simmons

Lara Simmons

New Zealand

"The audio-visual archival sector faces unique challenges and many of us are the sole institution of our kind in our country. JTS provides a unique and valuable opportunity for “ako”-- a Māori term referring to the reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning, where both have something to give and receive."

Lara Simmons is the Lead Advisor Collection Management for Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision. She led the project to develop the archive’s prioritisation model, Hakune, which is used to inform all Collection Management decisions. Her career history includes years spent as a structural engineer before receiving her Master of Museum and Heritage Practices where she transitioned to the GLAM sector. She now specialises in development and implementation of pragmatic strategic planning and frameworks to help archives maximise their resources and impact.

Headshot of Casey Winkleman

Casey Winkleman

United States of America

“As our necessity to digitize magnetic media collections intensifies, our collective need for collaborative knowledge-sharing and problem-solving likewise expands. JTS provides a forum for us to share our strategies, challenges, and ideas for finding creative ways forward together as our audiovisual preservation work grows in complexity.”

Casey Winkleman (she/they) is the Manager of the IS Library and Media Preservation Lab in the UCLA Department of Information Studies, Secretary of the Magnetic Media Crisis Committee, and Co-Director of the School of Education & Information Studies Center for the Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage (CPAH), which provides digitization resources for Los Angeles community-based archives and audiovisual training opportunities for information science grad students. She is the Principal Investigator of the Northern Mariana Islands Archival Permissions and Consent Research Project funded by the UCLA Global Advisory Council, which engages Chamorro and Carolinian knowledge bearers, seafarers, performers, weavers, carvers, archivists, librarians, artisans, healers, and community members in dialogue to increase understanding and access to the unique archival cultural protocols, restrictions, and access considerations across the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

2-Day snapshot

Symposium sessions are being held in the Arc Cinema, NFSA

Day 1 – Tuesday 3 March 2026
Oral and panel presentations
Exhibition
Day 2 – Wednesday 4 March 2026
Oral and panel presentations
Exhibition
Networking Event – end of day 1
Wind down and connect with colleagues over drinks and light bites. Open to all symposium delegates immediately following the final session on Day 1.
NFSA Courtyard, 5.30pm–7.30pm
Download the detailed program

JTS 2026 is held in partnership with CCAAA

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Have a question?

Contact us at jts@conlog.com.au or call 02 6281 6624.