Benedict "Bono" [bō- nō] Salazar Olgado is a Ph.D. candidate in informatics and globalstudies at the UC Irvine. Co-advised by Dr. Geoffrey C. Bowker and Dr. Roderic Crooks, Olgado’s research is broadly situated at the intersections of memory, technology, and document(ation) studies in relation to human rights. Bono is particularly interested in the datafication of transitional justice. He looks into how databases as information infrastructure and their imaginaries configure the memory practices and politics entailed in contending with violent pasts.
Olgado is currently affiliated as a graduate researcher with the Steckler Center for Responsible, Ethical, and Accessible Technology (CREATE), the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction (LUCI), the Evoke Lab and Studio, and the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies. He is a co-founder/organizer of the Datafication and Community Activism initiative at UC Irvine.
In 2021, Olgado was named one of the inaugural Fellows of the UC Noyce Initiative in AI, Law, and Society. In the same year, he also received the Rob Kling Endowed Memorial Fellowship for his work in the field of social informatics. Recognizing the potential of his research "to enrich the lives of global communities," UCI awarded Bono the Public Impact Distinguished Fellowship for 2022-2023 and the University of California President's Dissertation Year Fellowship for 2023-2024.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Olgado often engages with and across disciplinal communities including LIS, STS, HCI, Film & Media, and Global Studies. He works on transnational geopolitics of technology, political economy of social media, archives & cinema, and video games in the Global South among others. Bono received his M.A. in moving image archiving and preservation from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a B.A. in social sciences and communication from the Ateneo de Manila University. As a scholar, he subscribes to while critically explores notions of academic generosity and academic insurgency.
An audiovisual archivist, Olgado has worked in various media archives, including as founding Director of the National Film Archives of the Philippines (now Philippine Film Archives). He was an executive councilor of the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association (2014-2020) and served as co-chair of the International Outreach Committee of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (2012-2015). In 2011, he was named the AMIA-Kodak Fellow in Film Preservation and in 2014 he received the FOCAL Award for Best Archive Restoration / Preservation for his work on the restoration of Manila in the Claws of Light (Maynila Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag, 1975/2013). He serves as a consultant on matters regarding records management and preservation infrastructure for cultural institutions, government agencies, non-profit organizations, personal estates and multinational corporations across Southeast Asia.
Passionate about teaching and mentorship, Olgado taught archival theory and practice at the University of the Philippines School of Library and Information Studies as an assistant professor of practice. He has advanced pedagogical training and certifications in evidence-based learning and learning-through-diversity. From mentoring first-generation undergraduates to helping incoming underrepresented minorities in graduate programs, Olgado serves as a mentor in numerous campus-wide programs seeking to help students navigate academia while also working with others in finding ways to improve campus climate. Given his commitments to improving diversity, equity, and inclusion at UC Irvine, he has been an Inclusive Excellence awardee in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Olgado's scholarship is grounded in his work as a community organizer and human rights advocate. He follows in the footsteps of his parents, who were farmers and church leaders during the Marcos regime. Olgado works with filmmakers, activists, and archivists in preserving the works of independent media collectives during Martial Law in the Philippines. Currently, he also serves as the lead database architect documenting the ongoing violent War on Drugs waged by the authoritarian regime of Rodrigo Duterte. In 2021, Olgado joined HURIDOCS initially as its Programme Manager for Asia Pacific before becoming its Documentalist. At HURIDOCS, he supports human rights groups across the globe with their documentation, information, and technological needs, while also leading research on the future of human rights documentation.