Technical Meeting on the development of the Dive into Heritage digital platform

On 29 and 30 September 2022, UNESCO organised the second online meeting for UNESCO’s Dive into Heritage project, with the support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

UNESCO is currently developing the “Dive into Heritage” platform, an online tool to make World Heritage and its related intangible heritage more accessible to the general public through digital data. During its pilot phase the project will focus on the Arab States region and will later be extended to other regions.

On 12 and 13 July 2022, UNESCO organised a first Expert Workshop on the scientific content of the Dive into Heritage platform. As a result of the expert discussions and case studies presented during this meeting, a set of key recommendations were developed to guide the next phase of the project.

The second “Online Technical Meeting on the Dive into Heritage platform development” was organised online on 29 and 30 September and gathered over 50 web developers, IT specialists and experts in the field of digital cultural heritage from different backgrounds and institutions. This Online Technical Meeting was organised by UNESCO to follow-up on the recommendations of the previous Expert Workshop.

Over the course of two days, the debates centred around on 5 thematic sessions that focused on key technical aspects of the future platform, such as User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design, data standards, platform architecture and system, hosting and data space, and FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse). These sessions were introduced by keynote speeches from leading institutions and key professionals in the field of digital cultural heritage, information technology and web development. The keynotes were followed by intense and constructive discussions from all participants.  The discussion sessions answered a number of questions that were identified as crucial for the project’s technical development.

This Technical meeting was part of the reflection exercise that is being conducted by UNESCO to support the implementation of the Dive into Heritage project.