Talent Story No. 6

“Sharing Arkhênum’s know-how and bringing culture to light”

Laurent Bidet is a consultant in digitisation and heritage promotion, and sharing is in his DNA. Laurent joined Arkhênum in 2017 and today channels the company’s expertise to international clients and the teams working in the Mobilitas Group (Arkhênum’s parent company). His number-one priority is to preserve and showcase the heritage of Africa. “I coordinate every facet of the company’s expertise with this goal in mind,” he explains. “Our mission is to help clients reveal the heritage and history contained in their archives, and to work alongside them to create tools that raise cultural awareness.”

And with good reason: before embarking on the Arkhênum adventure, Laurent worked as an IT sales engineer and as a production manager in archive digitisation. “In 2017, Laurent Onaïnty, Arkhênum’s managing director, was keen to scale up his team to carry out heritage digitisation projects in Africa,” he explains. For Laurent Bidet, joining Arkhênum was an opportunity to “take things up a notch” in line with the company’s goals. This international expansion was made possible thanks to Arkhênum’s own resources and the support of the Mobilitas Group.

Sharing expertise: a real vocation

Laurent’s new role has seen him travel to numerous countries in Africa, where he has learnt about other cultures. Since 2017, Laurent has undertaken projects in, amongst other places, Dakar, and delivered training courses in several countries on the continent. He believes he has “sown seeds in the various African countries I’ve visited where time is perceived differently than in Europe”.

Giving people back the keys to their history

Laurent explains that digital technology can be used to explore, analyse and process information more effectively.

“Heritage digitisation is vital to reveal knowledge and safeguard world heritage. An archive that is fragile and hard to access (except for a privileged few) can quickly and easily be made available to everyone once it has been digitised.”

Arkhênum establishes itself as an international expert

Laurent saw his role expand in 2020 to include the technical analysis of digitisation tenders in Germany, a new market for Arkhênum. “My function – which is mainly technical – means I review tenders, sound the alarm about potential risks, and assess what we can do to bring a project to a successful completion.” It’s an approach that has proved to be a success: two major projects have recently started in Berlin and Leipzig, with Laurent acting as a digitisation consultant expert.

What motivates Laurent in his day-to-day work?

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