Anne Balsamo's presentation "Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work in the Creation of Cultural Heritage" outlines her approach to the study and practice of technology-based innovation and argues that the real business of innovation is the reproduction of culture over time and over place.  Understanding innovation as a social-technical-cultural process, Balsamo insists on the important role of humanists in the technological reproduction of culture. Because their work seriously considers questions of ethics, cultural and social good, and intentional future-making, these "cultural workers" need to be actively engaged in the process whereby new technologies are developed and deployed. Balsamo focuses on two projects: the design of public interactives and the creation of interactive experiences for the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Anne Balsamo has worked in innovative ways across the academy and the private sector, investigating and designing technologies that serve social justice and the public good. She is currently Dean of the School of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. Her most recent book, Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work (2011), examines the relationship between culture and technological innovation.