IIT Delhi to host the first International Heritage Symposium and Exhibition

The first-ever International Heritage Symposium and Exhibition (IHSE) will kick off on 15th January 2020 at the National Museum, Janpath, New Delhi. It is being jointly organized by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST), and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.

This event will attempt to bring together for the first time, communities from diverse disciplines such as science, technology, culture and social sciences who are engaged in conservation, preservation and management of World Heritage in physical and digital space.

The ‘IHSE 2020’ has been developed around the frequently articulated need for preserving India’s rich cultural heritage digitally, for our future generations. The two-day event will allow for interdisciplinary dialogue to take place between scientists, academia, historians, social scientists, practitioners, musicologists, policymakers, allowing for adoption of best practices and technology to preserve world and India’s heritage.

A month-long exhibition at the National Museum will be starting from 15th January 2020. Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Minister of Science, Technology and Earth Sciences will be the Chief Guest and Shri Prahlad Singh Patel, Hon’ble Minister of Culture will be the Guest of Honour on the occasion.

The event will witness 7-panel discussions over two days (15th and 16th January 2020) of specific subjects between various domain experts. Panelists for the various sessions include Professor Ashutosh Sharma (Secretary, Department of Science and Technology), Prof. Katsushi Ikeuchi (Professor, University of Tokyo),  Prof. Nadia Magnetat Thalmann (Professor, NTU, Singapore), Prof. Sree Srinivasan (ex-Chief Digital Officer, Met Museum, New York), Dr. Massimo Spadini (Embassy of Italy), Ms. Junhi Han (UNESCO), Prof. Santanu Chaudhury (Director, IIT-Jaipur), Ms. Anna Roy (Niti Aayog), Prof. P.J. Naranayanan (Director, IIIT Hyderabad), Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri (Director, IIT Bombay). Dr. P Anandan (CEO, Wadhwani Institute for AI), Prof. Prem Kalra  (Professor, IIT Delhi), Dr. Sacchidanand Joshi (Member, Secretary, IGNCA), Padma Vibhushan Kathak exponent Dr. Uma Sharma, apart from well-known personalities from the domain of History, Art, Performing Arts, as well as policy-makers from Ministry  of Tourism, Culture, Water Resource etc.

The foundation to this event was laid by the Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) project (2010-2014), which was a unique initiative of the Department of Science & Technology supporting collaborative projects between researchers in the areas of technology and humanities for the digital documentation and interpretation of our tangible and intangible heritage.

The goal of the IDH Research Project (www.digitalhampi.in) was to extend the power of digital technologies to well beyond monuments to art, architecture and all forms of cultural and historical knowledge. The aim of the project was to go beyond simply storing and sharing the heritage data and knowledge and use emerging technologies to create vivid experiences of the heritage for common users. IDH initiative gave birth to some of the most advanced techniques and technologies in digital heritage preservation, and DST motivated setting up of technology start-ups to translate this research into commercial products, one of them being Vizara Technologies Pvt Ltd.

Two edited books on Digital Heritage work being done in India, which come out of the IDH project and have been published by world renowned publishers Springer, will be launched at the occasion. These are “Digital Hampi: preserving Indian Cultural Heritage”(https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811057373) and “HeritagePreservation : A Computational Approach” (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811072208)