Using the Cloud to Preserve the Future with Alex Chan

Alex is a software developer at Wellcome Collection, a museum in London that explores the history of human health and medicine. Their role primarily focuses on preservation and building systems to store the museum’s digital archive. Alex also helps run the annual PyCon UK conference, with a particular interest in the event’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Join Corey and Alex as they discuss how Alex built a calculator using DynamoDB, the role Corey played in inspiring Alex to do that, what Corey means when he calls someone a “code terrorist,” the features that are packed into Alex’s calculator, why Corey thinks the Wellcome Collection would be a great acquisition for AWS, why the museum always likes to keep two copies of things, how Glacier Deep Archive is great for long-term storage, the challenges museums face in the 21st century vs. the challenges they faced in the 18th century, what it’s like to digitize Betamax, VHS, and CD-ROMs, how to find items in a vast digital archive, and more.