The Culture Working Group (CWG) under India’s G20 Presidency will be organising the Global Thematic Webinar on “Leveraging Digital Technologies for the Protection and Promotion of Culture”. The webinar is the last in the series of the four organised by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, which is being facilitated by UNESCO (Paris), as a knowledge partner of CWG.

The webinar is scheduled for 20 April 2023, from 12:30 PM to 8:30 PM (IST), with the intent to foster an inclusive dialogue and initiate an in-depth discussion from an expert driven perspective on the priority area articulated by the CWG and supported by the G20 membership. The aim is to discuss the digital upskilling and capacity building of cultural practitioners and sharing of best practices to digitise cultural heritage assets for long term preservation by experts from G20 members, guest nations, and relevant international organisations.

At the global thematic webinar, experts would also discuss the impact of emerging technologies and the new opportunities they present to memory institutions for reaching wider audiences and engage them in novel and immersive ways. These include artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality and robotics among others.

Artificial intelligence, for instance, can help memory institutions analyse and categorise vast amounts of data, making it easier to organise and access digital archives. Virtual and augmented reality technologies can create immersive experiences that enable visitors to interact with historical artefacts and cultural heritage sites in a more engaging and personalised way. Robotics can be used to create replicas of artifacts and cultural objects, enabling their preservation and dissemination beyond the physical boundaries of the institution.

However, the constantly evolving nature of digital technologies also presents challenges for memory institutions, particularly in the areas of digital preservation. This challenge requires an agile, context-specific, and global framework for the digitisation and digitalisation of culture. The potential of emerging technologies to transform the way we engage with culture is immense, and memory institutions need to be proactive in leveraging these technologies to achieve their mission of preserving and disseminating cultural heritage by exploring opportunities for collaboration among the various stakeholders for digitalisation and digitisation of culture, especially with private technology firms.

The upcoming webinar will consist of three speaking segments, specifically designed to explore and discuss significant aspects of the theme - Leveraging digital technologies for the protection and promotion of culture. These segments will aim to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange of good practices, identify gaps and priorities, and provide recommendations to the CWG.

The webinar will have three speaking segments and experts will be distributed across these segments based on their respective time zone. The webinar will be moderated by representatives from ICOM, ICOMOS, and UNITAR with expertise on the topic. It will be live streamed on the YouTube channel of UNESCO. The previous global thematic webinars on priority one, two and three were conducted on 28 March, 13 and 19 April respectively.

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