Dr. Bastien Varoutsikos is the Director of Strategy at the ALIPH Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Earning his Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 2015, he is a cultural heritage specialist and an archaeologist with over a decade of experience in the Middle East, South Caucasus, Sahel and Central Asia. At Turquoise Mountain, Bastien led extensive programs documenting intangible cultural heritage in Afghanistan and Jordan. He also supervised scientific and preservation projects that utilized remote sensing technology in Armenia, Iraq, Syria and Yemen during his tenure at Iconem. His scholarly contributions, which span more than twenty papers in peer-reviewed journals and popular outlets, focus on the interplay between cultural heritage, politics and technology.