The 'Cultural adventure at your fingertips' hackathon gets awarded

On 24 October, as part of the annual conference of the European Cultural Tourism Network (ECTN 2019) in Spain, the STB received the first prize in the Innovation and Digitalisation category of the ECTN Destination of Sustainable Cultural Tourism Awards for the 'Cultural adventure at your fingertips' hackathon that was held in September 2018, marking the European year of cultural heritage.

Maja Pak, Managing Director of the Slovenian Tourist Board, said the following:"We are delighted that Slovenia won the European Cultural Tourism Network award for the Destination of Sustainable Cultural Tourism 2019 in the category of Innovation and Digitalisation for the 'Cultural adventure at your fingertips' hackathon project. We attribute particular importance to digitalisation, innovation and sustainability because they make key contributions to the attractiveness of tourism products and services and make marketing more effective. The development of such products and services is particularly encouraged in 2018 and 2019, when culture is the central theme of the promotional activities of the Slovenian Tourist Board. We wish to present Slovenia’s rich cultural heritage to tourists also by offering a virtual experience and using the widest range of data. This is an award for all partners, as the implementation of the 'Cultural adventure at your fingertips' hackathon project is the fruit of our excellent cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration, the Ministry of Culture, and technology partners from the private sector. Together we have created unique digital cultural heritage stories that lead to innovative, personalised and inclusive tourist experiences."

On behalf of everyone involved in the 'Cultural adventure at your fingertips' hackathon project, the award at the ceremony held on October 24 in Granada was accepted by Morana Polovič from the Slovenian Tourist Board.

The 'Cultural adventure at your fingertips' hackathon was initiated and organised by the Ministry of Public Administration.  TheSlovenian Tourist Board joined the project on the basis of its previous experience with the first all-Slovenian tourism hackathon and the need for the digitalisation of cultural heritage, and played an active role in developing the concept of the project. The project was carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and technological partners: Microsoft and IBM as the main sponsors, and partners GDI Ljubljana, Oracle, Xlab and Comtrade, the Faculty of Computer and Information Science - Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Multimedia, and the Faculty of Arts, Department of Geography. The project was implemented by the ABC accelerator.

It took place in September 2018, as a part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage in tourism. It brought together 48 young programmers, designers, as well as cultural heritage and tourism enthusiasts and experts who were tasked with creating an outline scheme of an IT solution in a limited time. The solution should improve the promotion and experience of Slovenia's cultural heritage in tourism through the visualization of Open Data with the 'Creating a digital story of cultural heritage' challenge.

Solutions were put forward by 9 teams. The expert panel was most impressed by the solutions of the following groups:

• Team Čarolet – magical experiences for the whole family (Matic Moličnik, Pia Poljanšek, Mark Prelec, Primož Sagmeister and Jurij Tekavec),
• Team Proteus Explore Slovenia (Tina Avbelj, Matevž Lenič, Pavlin Poličar and Žiga Vučko) and
• Team Raketa (Andraž Erker, Matevž Gros, Domen Jelič, Urška Krivograd and Igor Pičuljan).

The selected solutions offer prototypes of applications that have clearly defined target groups, are closest to the concept of Tourism 4.0 and offer the most comprehensive and user-friendly experience and inclusion of local players in presentations of Slovenia's cultural heritage.   

These considerations were the basis for the challenges for hackathon participants:

• Connecting different kinds of heritages, including digital and less known ones, outside of the high season.
• Connecting heritage and gastronomy: Slovenia – European Gastronomic Region 2021 or Taste sLOVEnia.
• Connecting heritage and local sights.

The best three teams presented their solutions at the Days of Slovenian Tourism 2018 in Portorož.

Further information about the finalists can be found here.

Photographed (left to right): Manos Vougioukas, ECTN Secretary-General, Jimmy Jamar, Head of the Europa Nostra Brussels Office, and Morana Polovič from the Slovenian Tourist Board.

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