World Fossil Day 2025 extends the conversation beyond ancient bones to the digital footprints shaping our shared human story. From geological fossils to data archives, REMMY NWEKE, in this edition of Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS, explores how technology, artificial intelligence, and telecoms infrastructure are redefining the meaning of preservation in the 21st century.
As the world marked World Fossil Day 2025 this week, the conversation extended beyond geology into the realm of technology, data science, and what might be called digital fossils, the enduring traces of human knowledge encoded in bytes rather than bones. 
World Fossil Day, celebrated every October 15, was established by the International Palaeontological Association (IPA) to highlight the importance of fossils as keys to understanding Earth’s ancient life.
In Nigeria, the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), under the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, oversees activities related to fossils and geological heritage. But in today’s digital era, fossils are no longer confined to rock strata; they are found in the ever-expanding data layers of our shared online existence.
This analogy between fossils and data points to a deeper reflection on how technology preserves, or distorts memory. Just as paleontologists reconstruct ancient life from bone fragments, data scientists now reconstruct human behaviour and history from metadata, digital logs, and AI-trained archives.
The concern, however, is whether these “digital fossils” will survive the rapid decay of platforms, hardware obsolescence, and algorithmic manipulation.
In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a dual role: as both preserver and disruptor. AI systems are being used to digitise and catalogue ancient artefacts, restore decayed manuscripts, and even generate 3D models of extinct species.
Yet, the same AI models can overwrite, filter, or bias data, subtly altering the heritage they are meant to protect.
As Prof. Christoph Becker, a digital preservation expert at the University of Toronto, notes, “Digital preservation requires not just technology, but sustained ethical commitment to protect authenticity and access for future generations.”
Global efforts in digital preservation are expanding rapidly. For instance, Google’s Arts & Culture division continues to archive endangered artefacts using immersive three-dimensional (3D) imaging and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, innovative tools that allow users to view, rotate, and explore ancient objects in lifelike detail from their phones or computers.
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In Nigeria, the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), under the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, oversees activities related to fossils and geological heritage. But in today’s digital era, fossils are no longer confined to rock strata; they are found in the ever-expanding data layers of our shared online existence.
This analogy between fossils and data points to a deeper reflection on how technology preserves, or distorts memory. Just as paleontologists reconstruct ancient life from bone fragments, data scientists now reconstruct human behaviour and history from metadata, digital logs, and AI-trained archives.
In this context, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a dual role: as both preserver and disruptor. AI systems are being used to digitise and catalogue ancient artefacts, restore decayed manuscripts, and even generate 3D models of extinct species.
Yet, the same AI models can overwrite, filter, or bias data, subtly altering the heritage they are meant to protect.
As Prof. Christoph Becker, a digital preservation expert at the University of Toronto, notes, “Digital preservation requires not just technology, but sustained ethical commitment to protect authenticity and access for future generations.”
Global efforts in digital preservation are expanding rapidly. For instance, Google’s Arts & Culture division continues to archive endangered artefacts using immersive three-dimensional (3D) imaging and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, innovative tools that allow users to view, rotate, and explore ancient objects in lifelike detail from their phones or computers.
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Through these technologies, digital copies of fragile or inaccessible cultural items can be experienced virtually, ensuring that they remain accessible to future generations even if the originals are damaged or destroyed.That perspective resonates deeply in Nigeria’s evolving digital landscape. From government archives to news platforms like ITREALMS, vast quantities of historical and civic data are being digitised daily.
Yet, without robust policies for data preservation, access, and ethical AI, much of this knowledge risks being lost to time, or locked behind corporate firewalls.
The telecommunications sector is a crucial player here. Beyond connecting billions, telecoms infrastructure underpins the storage and transmission of humanity’s collective memory. Each SMS, cloud backup, and online transaction forms part of the digital strata that future generations will study.
Nigeria’s ongoing push for broadband expansion and cloud data localisation is therefore not just about connectivity, it’s also about safeguarding digital heritage.
In the same vein, AI-driven preservation projects such as automated transcription of oral histories or geospatial mapping of ancient settlements represent a fusion of science, technology, and storytelling, the same synergy that once allowed early scientists to decode fossils.
Yet, as Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS reflects, preservation without ethics is another kind of extinction. If the fossil record teaches us anything, it is that life, and knowledge, survive through diversity and adaptation.
The challenge before today’s digital architects is to ensure that the AI systems we build remain transparent, inclusive, and accountable to the human story they are meant to serve.
As World Fossil Day reminds us, heritage, whether buried in stone or stored in silicon is humanity’s most durable legacy. How we protect it in this AI age will determine not only what future generations know about us, but what they believe we stood for.
Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS … making leadership SENSE with digital news!
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