What's over the digital horizon for heritage?

The 2018 Heritage 2020 foresight workshop will critically examine some of the 'digital game-changers' and their implications for the heritage sector.

Outcomes

Digital experts will inspire participants with the 'art of the possible'
Participants will build connections; with each other and to relevant strategic agendas
A collective sense of the sector's digital ambitions and where opportunities for collaborative working lie

Programme

10.00 Registration and coffee

10.30 Welcome

Opening address: Michael Ellis MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Arts, Heritage and Tourism

Karen Brookfield, Deputy Director of Strategy and Business Development at Heritage Lottery Fund

Mike Heyworth, Chair of the Heritage 2020 HEF subcommittee

11.00 Over the digital horizon - 'The art of the possible'

How cutting-edge technology is being used by other sectors, and what its potential might be for the heritage sector.

11.50 Plenary discussion with speakers to explore the opportunities presented by these technologies for:

new audiences
skills
re-use of data
conservation management

12.30 Lunch

13.15 Group sessions - to identify a single digital ambition for each theme

Group 1: Audiences

Group 2: Skills

Group 3: Re-use of data

Group 4: Conservation management

14.15 Group feedback and plenary discussion to agree actions that can be taken by Heritage 2020 or organisations that participate in Heritage 2020 that will transform the heritage sector's relationship with digital technology.

15.00 Close

Background

New technologies have already had a transformative effect on every aspect of the heritage sector's work. Visits to heritage places are planned through smartphone-enabled websites; Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other platforms enable favourite sites to be 'liked' and shared with fellow communities of interest; projects such as 'Enriching the List' create the possibility of wider forms of heritage significance to be captured and recorded alongside digitised versions of the official designations of sites and buildings; BIM (Building Information Management) and Geospatial imaging provide new ways of managing heritage assets. Digital platforms are opening up heritage, making the experience more shared and interactive, and providing new ways to capture heritage values.

The nature of technology is such that really big transformations may yet still be around the corner and, for now, remaining invisible to many.

The 2018 Foresight session will bring together people from the historic environment sector, the wider cultural sector and the technology sector to hear about the 'art of the possible' and work together to identify four digital ambitions in the areas of new audiences, skills, data re-use and conservation management.

Image: By Martin420 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Heritage 2020 Digital Foresight Workshop