Digital meets Culture

Lilongwe, Malawi, 5 - 8 May 2015

IST-Africa 2015 Conference

Hosted by the Government of Malawi through the National Commission for Science and Technology, Supported by the European Commission and African Union Commission, IST-Africa 2015 will take place in Lilongwe from 05 – 08 May 2015.

Part of the IST-Africa Initiative, which is supported by the European Commission under the ICT Theme of Framework Programme 7 (FP7), IST-Africa 2015 is the tenth in an Annual Conference Series which brings together senior representatives from leading commercial, government & research organisations across Africa and from Europe, to bridge the Digital Divide by sharing knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and good practice and discussing policy related issues.

The scientific programme for IST-Africa 2015 is based on an open Call for Papers.

IST-Africa 2015 is focused on applied ICT and the core thematic areas include:

Digital Libraries
eHealth, mHealth & Health Information Systems
eGovernment – Services to Citizens & Business
eInfrastructures, NRENs and IPv6
Future Internet: Cyber Security, Privacy and Trust, Connected Enterprise
ICT for Agriculture and Environmental Sustainability
ICT4D (including Humanitarian Technologies)
ICT Skills and ICT for eInclusion and eAccessibility
ICT Regulatory Frameworks
Living Labs (Adaptation for Developing Countries)
Mobile Applications (including mServices, mEducation, Social Networking)
Next Generation Computing: Big Data, Cloud Computing, Data Localisation, Internet of Things (IoT)
Open Source Software – Applications
Technology-enhanced Learning
Transformation of Research Results into Local Innovation
Societal Implications of Technology

Interested presenters are encouraged to prepare an 8 page paper (4,000 – 5,000) words following the IST-Africa paper guidelines and paper template for submission online by 19 December. For more information, please visit http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2015/default.asp?page=submission

All submissions will be double blind peer reviewed by the International Programme Committee and authors will receive feedback in late January. Accepted authors will then be invited to submit a final paper taking account of feedback provided for inclusion in the conference proceedings by 28 February.

this App is an open data oriented platform that will enable scalable services for cultural engagement

Towards “Cooltura”, the TAG CLOUD platform and app

The TAG CLOUD project was launched to investigate how to enable cultural engagement by using cloud-based technologies that leverage adaptability and personalisation of created Cultural Heritage content, aiming at supporting deeper engagement and learning over time. Following a User-Cantered Design (UCD) methodology, the TAG CLOUD project has placed the user at the centre of developments and follows an iterative design cycle which serves to feedback the design, development, improvement and optimisation of its COOLTURA Platform and App.

The COOLTURA Platform will be an open data oriented platform that will enable scalable services for cultural engagement; which will be tested, piloted and firstly exploited with the COOLTURA App at TAG CLOUD three pilot sites, which will simultaneously install the App to demonstrate that TAG CLOUD system enables the people engagement in wide different domains and contexts in the cultural heritage.

The COOLTURA platform has a data management layer that allows content curation and harvesting, as well as an intelligent layer has the ability to abstract complex data and cultural consumption processes, and transforms them into content and processes that aim to be more consumable and manageable by the cultural visitors. The COOLTURA platform processes the content to be sent to and seen in the COOLTURA App in a personalized and adaptive way.

The COOLTURA App access the cultural content processed in the COOLTURA platform. The COOLTURA app will allow visualizing the cultural content in mobile devices (such smartphones or tablets) through cultural itineraries, routes, allowing exploration of cultural objects through augmented reality, games or sharing your cultural experience through social networks!

The name “Cooltura” comes from the idea of experiencing culture in a cool way that will allow visitors to experience culture in a personalised, dynamic, interactive and exciting way through the integration of social media, augmented reality and storytelling technologies.

Jinan, China, 23-29 August 2015

The 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences

The 22nd ICHS, which will be held in Jinan, Shandong, the birthplace of Confucius and Mencius, is the first time for the congress to be held in Asia.

After the successfully-held Beijing Olympics, it will again be an opportunity to show the long history and deep culture of China, and its recent economic and cultural booming to the world.

It is a stage to show the history and cultures from all over the world and for the communication and research of them.

IAn international coordination platform for historical research and a cyber-platform to show the history and culture of each country will be set up; and there will be a series of activities for the communication of history and different cultures, such as global historical and cultural weeks.

There will be 79 topics for the 22nd ICHS. During the term of the congress, participants will fully enjoy the fascination of the history as well as the culture of hospitable Shandong – a famous tourist destination blessed with splendid cultural heritage.

More information and contacts

Official website: http://www.ichschina2015.org/

Registration: http://www.ichschina2015.org/cms/ljdh/925.jhtml

Please visit http://www.ichschina2015.org/cms/Reduction%20and%20Exemption/index.jhtml for relevant information.
If you have any question about the Congress, please contact the Secretariat of the Organizing Committee by telephone +86-0531-88363791 or email cish2015@sdu.edu.cn.
For reference to Association of Chinese Historians(ACH)，please contact Ms Yang Wanrong by telephone +86 010 65278696, or email yangwr@cass.org.cn.

On occasion of the Italian presidency of the Council of the European Union, the international consortium RICHES (Renewal, Innovation and Change: Heritage and European Society) chose Pisa as seat for the important conference Cultural Heritage: Recalibrating Relationships.

The event, held on 4-5 December at the Museum of Graphics of Palazzo Lanfranchi, was organised by RICHES Italian partner Promoter Srl with the support of: Italian Ministry of Economic Development, Tuscany Region, Municipality of Pisa, University of Pisa and Fondazione Sistema Toscana (“Tuscany System Foundation”).

RICHES is a research project funded by the European Commission within the 7^th Framework Programme in the domain of Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities. Its main objective – enclosed in the project’s slogan «Recalibrating Relationships: bringing cultural heritage and people together in a changing Europe and finding new ways of engaging with heritage in a digital world» – is to reduce the distance between people and culture, recalibrating the relationship between heritage professionals and heritage users in order to maximise cultural creativity and ensure that the whole European community can benefit from the social and economic potential of Cultural Heritage.

Well-known experts, European and extra-European, will intervened as keynote speakers:

Neil Forbes of Coventry University (UK), Historian
Xiao Chun Situ of Beijing Youth Daily (RC), Artist and Reporter
Bill Thompson of BBC (UK), Media and Technology Expert
Karol Borowiecki of University of Southern Denmark (DK), Economist

Representatives from the project’s consortium (Coventry University from UK, Coordinator, Promoter Srl from Italy, Hansestadt Rostock from Germany, Stichting Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde from The Netherlands, Waag Society from The Netherlands, the University of Exeter from UK, Fundació i2CAT from Spain, Syddansk Universitet from Denmark, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz from Germany, Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Kultur ve Turizm Bakanligi from Turkey) intervened too, presenting the RICHES research’s initial outcomes and introducing further survey prospects.

The public was moreover involved in a pleasant socio-cultural activity: a visit to the exhibition devoted to Italian artist and draftsman Tullio Pericoli, organised in the same venue as the conference, concluding with a welcome cocktail. Welcome coffee and catering lunch were offered to all the attendees.

For further info visit the conference’s website!

RICHES on Twitter: #richesEU

RICHES on YouTube: www.youtube.com/richesEU

Valletta, 25-27 November 2014

CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES: Workshop on User Requirements

An interesting Workshop will be hosted by the LIAS Department of the University of Malta as a combination of representatives of the CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES project* with other representatives of the community mostly from the local cultural heritage scene.

The aim of the workshop will be to discuss requirements of the various stakeholders relevant to citizen science in cultural heritage institutions and suggest scenarios and use cases which will illustrate the methods of engagement with citizens, and the user interaction within the technological solutions used for the various research lifecycle stages.

The event is quite compact and aims to discuss the requirements to citizen science especially in the CH context; from this point of view sharing experiences by Cultural Heritage institution learned in the process on the requirements of specific stakeholders will be very useful and crucial.

The Workshop will host interventions by experts from relevant cultural heritage institutions. Experts that have confirmed their partecipation are: Fermín Serrano Sanz (University of Zaragoza, Spain), Catherine Thomas, Ghislain Sillaume (Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance de l’Europe – CVCE, Luxembourg), John Ashley Burgoyne (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, The Netherlands), Lorna Hughes (National Library of Wales, UK).

The Workshop is organised by Prof. Milena Dobreva, head of the Library Information and Archive Sciences (LIAS) Department of the University of Malta.

More information and a full coverage of the event are available here

Download the Programme of the event here

* The CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES project is about the participation of citizens in research on cultural heritage and humanities. ICT are powerful drivers of creativity, but specific technical know-how is still generally lacking in the creative industries sectors. In addition, humanities scholarship is not yet taking full advantage of ICT to engage with wider audiences. New skills are needed to enable the cultural sector to grasp employment and commercial opportunities. The project aims to develop and validate a Roadmap for the use of e-Infrastructures to support the participation of European citizens in research on cultural heritage and digital humanities. Critically, the Roadmap will offer support for improved social cohesion arising from the sharing of knowledge and understanding of Europe’s citizens common and individual cultures. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration.

Brussels, 11 December 2014

European High Level Conference on “Education in the Digital Era”

The Digital Era is changing the ways we interact between us, the ways we work… and for sure, the educational world. Traditional ways of teaching and learning are being transformed, and key challenges should be addressed to exploit the technologies potential on learning as well as to ensure that the young generations have the required digital skills and competences.

The European High Level Conference on “Education in the Digital Era” brought together interested stakeholders to discuss the opportunities and challenges of adapting education to a fast changing, digital society and economy, whilst shaping education’s place and priority in the EU’s sustainable growth agenda.

The event was organised around 3 main key themes:

Increasing the quality and relevance of learning. How can we make learning more interactive and connected through digital means, responding to learners’ individual needs and goals? (materials around this topic here)
Increasing the impact of educators. How to unlock the potential for a more personal and effective interaction with students? (materials around this topic here)
Addressing inequalities through better access and lower cost. How to ensure digital access to the best content, resources and teachers (materials around this topic here)

The discussion around these topics was intensified through an online debate. The main positions and inputs of the different participants in the panels were available to the audience ahead of the event through the event website, allowing to start the discussion and engage with the addressed issues ahead of the conference itself. At the same time, the debate can be followed on Twitter through @OpenEduEU and the hashtag #EdDigEra.

As stated at The NMC Horizon Report Europe: 2014 Schools Edition, European schools are facing key challenges linked to the impact and use of new technologies:

Alongside the debate, participants were also be able to visit and experience a replica of European Schoolnet’s Future Classroom Lab, a glimpse at some of the most recent developments in learning technologies. During the lunch break, the award ceremony of the Open Education Challenge took place. The winners showed the potential of entrepreneurship and innovation in education.

Limassol, 3 November 2014

CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES presented at EUROMED 2014

The Project Coordinator, Mauro Fazio and the Technical Coordinator, Antonella Fresa recently kicked-off the Civic Epistemologies project.

Mauro Fazio from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, Civic Epistemologies Project Coordinator, presented the project at the workshop “The Digitization Age: Mass Culture is Quality Culture. Challenges for Cultural Heritage and Society“, organised by Promoter Srl in the framework of the EUROMED 2014 Conference in Limassol, Cyprus.

The presentation started on the project’s objectives and expected outcomes, focusing in particular on the benefits that the project can bring to the economic development. The project develop and validate a Roadmap for the use of the e-Infrastructures to support the partecipation of European citizens in research on Cultural Heritage and Digital Humanities.

The paper submitted presents CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES as one of the most important projects currently active in the DCHH domains.

Download here the presentation of CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES.

For more information on the workshop please visit this article.

Limassol, 3 November 2014

PREFORMA presented at EUROMED 2014

Peter Pharow from Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, PREFORMA Design Phase Leader, presented the project at the workshop “The Digitization Age: Mass Culture is Quality Culture. Challenges for Cultural Heritage and Society“, organised by Promoter Srl in the framework of the EUROMED 2014 Conference in Limassol, Cyprus.

The presentation focused on providing the audience with a general overview of the project’s aims and objectives and of the PREFORMA Challenge, highlighting in particular the lessons learnt from the preparation of the procurement and the main challenges for the design phase which has just started.

Download here the paper that has been published on the Conference Proceedings “Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection”.

Download here the presentation of PREFORMA.

For more information on the workshop please visit this article.

The association born as a spin-off of Europeana Photography project is now officially open

Celebrating PHOTOCONSORTIUM

The great experience of the Europeana Photography project is near to its end: the project is finishing on 31st January 2015 with a big closing event in Leuven. But the end of the project is nothing else than what it is: the end of the EU-funded project. The group of partners of Europeana Photography consortium strongly intends to stay together also beyond the EU-funding period, to build upon the results of the project and sail away for new opportunities related to the cultural value of photographic heritage.

For this reason, in Bratislava on 6th November 2014, just before the opening ceremony of the photographic exhibition Teatralny Svet, realized by the slovak partner Divadelny Ustav with a selection of photos digitized for the Europeana Photography project, the group celebrated officially the opening of PHOTOCONSORTIUM International Consortium for Photographic Heritage. The new body, in the form of an association, has the purpose of promotion and enhancement of the culture of photography and the photographic heritage.

The association has democratic structure, political independence and unlimited duration. It is a not for profit association, which intends to promote and organizes conferences, exhibitions, awards, training courses, publishing activities; to carry on and encourage research and studies; to promote initiatives in the interests of its members, collect data and provide consultancy.

The 18 members who joined the association in Bratislava are honored with the status of Founding Members, and constituted the first General Assembly of the association.

By acclamation, were nominated Fred Truyen as President and Antonella Fresa as Vice-president.

Photoconsortium already has a web address: www.photoconsortium.com, to be enriched shortly with full information of the association and its initiatives.

Two papers, a presentation and two technical workshops

Europeana Photography at ICA Girona 2014

ICA congress 2014 was a major event organized by Europeana Photography partner CRDI / Ajuntament de Girona. That was a perfect occasion for project’s dissemination towards an international and very valuable audience, and several partners attended it.

Two papers were submitted about the project, by Antonella Fresa and Valentina Bachi (Promoter) and by Frederik Truyen and Sofie Taes (KU Leuven).

The project was presented during a session dedicated to early photography, chaired by Fina Solà and including as speeches:

Fascismo, Guerra y Fotografía: la mirada de la nueva España, by Juan Alonso Fernández, Aleix Purcet Gregori (ES)
Creating a global online archive of Photography – the challenges, by Julia de Mowbray (EN)
Europeana Photography: photography as a privileged witness of our shared past 1839-1939, by Frederik Truyen (EN)
Adecuación de la descripción archivística de documentos fotográficos a los estándares internacionales by Darcinele Sena Rezende; André Porto Ancona López (ES)

The Conference papers are published in the Girona Municipality website http://www.girona.cat/web/ica2014/eng/comunicacions.php#top

The articles related to Europeana Photography can also be downloaded here:

Digitising, discovering and valuing European photographic heritage – A. Fresa, V. Bachi (Promoter) – PDF, 393 Kb

“All Our Yesterdays”: Europeana and the Phenomenology of Photographic Experience through the Framing of Digitization – F. Truyen, S. Taes (KU Leuven) – PDF, 572 Kb

Moreover, a dedicated workshop held by Nacha Van Steen (KMKG) was aimed to explain the skosified vocabulary created in the framework of the Europeana Photography project. the workshop was delivered in two sessions, one in English and one in French and in total there were 37 people registered.

Programme of the workshop (English): PDF, 317 Kb

Photos: Jordi S. Carrera, Ajuntament de Girona