The urgency is undeniable. Across the continent, manuscripts decay in under resourced archives, artefacts disappear through theft and illicit trade and indigenous languages fade as elders pass on without their knowledge being recorded.

Oral traditions, which sit at the heart of African historiography, are especially vulnerable in a digital first world that privileges written and online content. Without deliberate intervention, entire knowledge systems risk vanishing within a generation.

Digitisation offers a powerful response. It enables the documentation, preservation and safeguarding of cultural assets before they are irreversibly lost. Digitising heritage does not replace physical artefacts or living traditions.

It creates high quality digital records, including images, audio, video, text and three-dimensional models, that preserve cultural memory even if originals are damaged, destroyed, or inaccessible.

In regions affected by conflict or environmental degradation, digital archives may one day be the only surviving record of a people's history. In this sense, digitisation becomes cultural insurance rather than convenience.

For centuries, Africa's story has been documented, interpreted and stored outside the continent. Digitising heritage under African leadership allows Africans to reclaim authorship of their own narratives.

Digitised collections can support more accurate education, challenge colonial distortions and allow African youth to engage directly with their history rather than through second hand accounts. Cultural preservation becomes an act of dignity and self-definition.

Technology also transforms access. Digital heritage transcends geography, allowing a student in a rural village to explore ancient artefacts, listen to ancestral stories, or study historical manuscripts through a phone or computer.

Diaspora communities can reconnect with their roots, and researchers can collaborate across borders. Heritage shifts from static relic to living resource.

There is also economic potential. Digitised heritage fuels film, animation, gaming, fashion, tourism, publishing and immersive media when cultural assets are owned and governed locally.

Instead of exporting raw cultural value, Africa can build creative industries that generate jobs, innovation and global influence rooted in its own identity.

Digitisation, however, carries risks. Cultural assets can be extracted, commercialised, or misused if governance is weak, and sacred knowledge may be exposed without consent. For this reason, digitisation must be community led, consent based and ethically governed, with strong protections for cultural rights, intellectual property and data sovereignty.

Preserving heritage at scale requires investment in skills, infrastructure and institutions. Archivists, historians, technologists, linguists and creatives must work together to build secure, resilient digital repositories. This is not a short-term project. It is a long-term commitment to memory, identity and continuity.

Preserving Africa's legacy cannot be left to chance or external actors. Governments, universities, museums, traditional authorities and private partners all have a role to play through coordinated continental action.

Africa should digitise its heritage not simply to archive the past, but to empower the future. When done with care, respect and African ownership, it ensures the continent's legacy is not only remembered, but lived, shared and carried forward in the digital age.

For more information, visit www.corridorafricatech.com. You can also follow Corridor Africa on LinkedIn.

*Image courtesy of contributor