Yoav Medan didn't know what to say when his mother died -- seemed that there just wasn't enough room on the tombstone to write what the family felt best suited her. So the medical technology executive thought outside of the box (or rectangle, as it were) and after talking it over with relatives, decided to put a QR code on her grave. It links to an ever-changing web page about his mother and features pictures from her life and reminiscences from family and friends.
Over time, Medan hopes the QR code and memorial site will help create a lasting history of his mother that will live on for generations. “I was most concerned about 20 or 40 years from now, how will she be remembered. … [I wanted to put] what’s in our memory into a place that doesn’t forget,” he said.The QR code itself is a laser engraving, filled with a black paste, and sits behind a piece of glass on the tombstone. “The guy who built the tombstone, he wants to make a business out of it,” Medan said.
He thinks the idea could catch on based on the feedback he’s been hearing. “People identify with this way of keeping the memory of someone and actually making it dynamic and evolving with time as you remember more,” he said. The QR code-enabled tombstone adds a new twist to the growing number of services we’ve seen emerge that are designed to help us decide what happens to our online identity after we die and create digital tributes to our lost loved ones.