Digital meets Culture

Athens, 18-19 October 2016

2016 EU Innovation Procurement event

eafip, the European Assistance for Innovation Procurement initiative promoted by the European Commission, is organising a major innovation procurement event, co-hosted by the European Commission and the Greek Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism in Athens, Greece on the 18^th and 19^th October 2016.

The event will include: presentations on the strategic use of innovation procurement by key cities, regions and countries across Europe and beyond; presentations by successful PCP and PPI projects; discussion groups on future funding opportunities moderated by EU officials; as well as presentations about the eafip Toolkit and local assistance (see our website for more information).

PREFORMA has been invited to deliver a presentation at this event in Session 2 at midday (12pm) on 18^th October: Joint Cross-border of procurement. This session will include presentations on joint cross-border Pre- Commercial Procurement (PCP) and Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI).

Download here the agenda of the workshop.

For futher information visit the event webpage.

The eafip initiative

The eafip initiative focuses on the promotion of the benefits of innovation procurement, providing at the same time training based on a Toolkit that is addressed to policy makers, procurement officers and procurement law firms. Assistance will also be offered to public procurers across the EU with a concrete interest in implementing innovation procurements.

For further information, please visit the eafip website: eafip.eu.

Madrid, 18-20 October 2016

PREFORMA @ Cloud Forward 2016

A poster about PREFORMA will be showcased at Cloud Forward 2016 Conference: From Distributed to Complete Computing which will take place in Madrid at the Circulo de Bellas Artes from 18 to 20 October 2016.

About CF2016

The CF2016 Conference brings together experts from industry and academia to present and discuss the future of and beyond Cloud Computing. Based on the HOLA Cloud project and platform – which documents European research, development and innovation in CLOUDs – the conference reviews experiences and discusses future directions to overcome problems and provide new opportunities for the utilisation of leading edge CLOUD Computing by industry and academia and for ICT developers providing innovative solutions.

The conference will provide the scientific community a dedicated setting for presenting and discussing innovative technologies in the area of distributed computing, as well as new technologies beyond CLOUDs, ranging from architectures over methodologies to new applications and services. In Cloud Forward 2016 experts from all over the world will come together to discuss together with the audience the requirements and future goals of cloud related technology development.

Integral to the conference, the work of the clusters of experts and EC projects working on ‘beyond current CLOUD’ topics will be presented.

The event will also host a dedicated SME event to investigate innovative technologies, promote business ideas and foster current game-changers arising on the market.

CF2016 is organised under the auspices of AMETIC, CDTI, Chamber of Commerce, EGI, Madrid+d, UNED and IEEE Cloud Computing Magazine. Conference proceedings will be published by Elsevier Science in the open-access Procedia Computer Science.

For further information, visit the event website: http://cf2016.holacloud.eu

Cyprus, 31 October - 5 November 2016

PREFORMA @ EuroMed 2016

Stefan Rohde-Enslin from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) will present PREFORMA at EuroMed 2016 in Cyprus. The presentation will be part of the panel “Reusing Digital Cultural Heritage: Boosting Education, Audience Engagement, Business Creation” organised by the Europeana Space project on 31 October 2016.

About the panel

Digitisation has been a major objective for most, if not all, cultural content holders in every European country. Museums, Librarie, Galleries, arts organisations and also private archives have completed significant digitisation actions, also with the support of EU financing, so that now the amount of digitised cultural heritage in Europe is really impressive.

Further progressing with digitisation, which should be extended also to minor collections, archives and private citizens, requires us to understand how digital cultural data can be re-used in novel ways, in order to leverage on this wealth of digital resources to improve citizens’ participation, access and enjoyment of cultural heritage and also to unlock the business potential that lies within it.

This panel, organized by the Europeana Space project and involving the most notable EU projects and initiatives dealing with digitised cultural heritage, intends to showcase different approaches, examples and best practice of reuse for digital cultural data, and to assess their impact in terms of enlarging citizen participation, developing advanced tools and resources for educational purposes, and for creating new businesses and job opportunities.

Relevant speakers from the key institutions in Europe, which are involved in the scenario of digital cultural heritage, will illustrate experiences of content reuse that exploit digital technologies to foster societal progress and also economic rewards. The panel is a great occasion for sharing knowledge and networking: cultural managers, ICT experts, researchers, creative industries, service providers and other EU projects are warmly invited to attend.

Info and programme available at http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/reusing-digital-cultural-heritage-boosting-education-audience-engagement-business-creation/.

About the Conference

From the 31st of October until the 5th of November 2016 stakeholders from different backgrounds will have the opportunity to come together, exchange their know-how and experiences in the Cultural Heritage research as well as the current and future worldwide developments in this area.

The 6th EuroMed conference focuses on interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research on tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, the use of cutting edge technologies for the protection, preservation, conservation, massive digitalisation and visualization/presentation of the Cultural Heritage content (archeological sites, artifacts, monuments, libraries, archives, museums, etc). At the same time, the event is intended to cover topics of research ready for exploitation, demonstrating the acceptability of new sustainable approaches and new technologies by the user community, SME’s, owners, managers and conservators of cultural patrimony.

For more information visit the Conference website.

Jerusalem, 7-8 November 2016

PREFORMA @ EVA/Minerva 2016

On 7 and 8 November 2016 the 13th annual international conference for professionals in cultural heritage will take place in Jerusalem.

The event focuses on the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage through education and training in advanced information and communication technologies (ICT).

Borje Justrell and Antonella Fresa – Project Coordinator and Technical Coordinator of PREFORMA – have been invited to present the last achievements and to demonstrate the use of the conformance checkers developed by the suppliers during the prototyping phase.

Pittsburgh, 9-12 November 2016

PREFORMA @ AMIA 2016 Conference

AMIA is a nonprofit international association dedicated to the preservation and use of moving image media. AMIA supports public and professional education and fosters cooperation and communication among the individuals and organizations concerned with the acquisition, preservation, description, exhibition, and use of moving image materials.

Programmed by professionals working in the field, the annual AMIA Conference is the largest gathering of motion picture and recorded sound archivists and interested professionals. More than 550 annual attendees include members and colleagues from around the world.

AMIA 2016 conference offers three parallel session tracks as well as workshops, screenings, receptions and the Vendor Cafe.

PREFORMA submitted a poster entitled “PREFORMA and MediaConch: Open Source Tools for Long-term Preservation” which aims to give an overview of the three tools that were created to check whether the PDF, TIFF or FFV1/MKV files adhere to their standard specification, with a main focus on the development of the MediaConch tool and CELLAR standardization activity.

A second poster about the integration between MediaConch (the conformance checker for AV files developed in PREFORMA) and Archivematica was also presented and displayed in the poster session during the Conference.

The goal of the Conference is to present an broadly-based program that speaks to the wide range of attendees with a balance of theory and practice, inviting new ideas and concepts that may stimulate additional interest, involvement and educational benefit. The conference provides an opportunity for colleagues and those interested in the field to meet, share information and work together. For newcomers to this vibrant, dynamic and committed community, networking with other AMIA members and industry professionals is invaluable for professional development. AMIA conference registration includes participation in all regular sessions and screenings and some special events.

For more information about AMIA 2016 visit the Conference website.

For more information about AMIA, events and membership, go to www.AMIAnet.org.

Girona, 17-18 November 2016

PREFORMA @ Image and Research Conference 2016

The 14th edition of the Image and Research Conference will be held in Girona on 17-18 November 2016.

Organized by the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) of the Girona City Council with the collaboration of the Association of Archivists of Catalonia, the Image and Research Conference represents the benchmark event in Spain for archivists, museologists, documentalists and photographers, mainly in the field of archival, preservation, history and document management.

The day before the Conference, on 16 November 2016, a workshop will be organised by the PREFORMA project to present the last achievements and to demonstrate the use of the conformance checkers developed by the suppliers during the prototyping phase.

Download here the full programme of the event.

Brussels, 4-5 February 2017

FOSDEM 2017

FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate.

Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.

FOSDEM 2017 will take place at ULB Campus Solbosch on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 February 2017.

FOSDEM is a free and non-commercial event organised by the community for the community. The goal is to provide free and open source software developers and communities a place to meet to:

get in touch with other developers and projects;
be informed about the latest developments in the free software world;
be informed about the latest developments in the open source world;
attend interesting talks and presentations on various topics by project leaders and committers;
to promote the development and benefits of free software and open source solutions.

Participation and attendance is totally free, though the organisers gratefully accept donations and sponsorship.

The FOSDEM team feels it is very important for free and open source software developers around the world to be able to meet in “real life”.

To this end, we have set up developer rooms (devrooms) with network/internet connectivity and projectors where teams can meet and showcase their projects. Devrooms are a place for teams to discuss, hack and publicly present latest directions, lightning talks, news and discussions. We believe developers can benefit a lot from these meetings.

Sydney, 25 November 2016

PDF Day Australia

November 25 2016 is PDF Day in Australia! This event brings ISO committee members and electronic document and accessibility professionals together to discuss the significance of ISO standards for PDF as well as the technology and solutions available to business users of PDF documents.

In conjunction with a scheduled meeting of ISO TC 171 SC 2 working groups, this PDF Association event will be held in Sydney’s central business district.

Packed with 17 educational sessions, PDF Day Australia is a do-not-miss event for business and government professionals working in document management and accessibility technology and policy.

Track 1 will focus on PDF as a file-format with focus on archival considerations.

Track 2 will focus on PDF accessibility and interactive features.

The PDF Association will feature veraPDF, the industry-supported PDF/A conformance checker developed by the veraPDF consortium in the framework of PREFORMA.

Check out the agenda and speakers! and register now! Space is very limited – a maximum of 35 in each track, so sign up today!

For more information visit http://www.pdfa.org/event/pdf-day-australia-2016/.

Rome, 25 November 2016

Smart Specialisation and Cultural Heritage: an engine for innovation and growth

The PREFORMA project has been invited by the Smart Specialisation Platform of the European Commission to present the main results and the main lessons learned so far at their next S3 event on Smart Specialisation and Cultural Heritage that will be held in Rome on 25 November 2016. The main objective is to present effective ways to manage pre-commercial public procurement in the field of Cultural Heritage.

This S3 workshop, co-organised by the S3 Platform, LazioInnova (the regional Innovation Agency of Region Lazio) and Regional Government of Lazio, will focus on Innovation policy and Cultural Heritage as a key element to promote socio-economic development and will discuss it how to reach its full potential.

The workshop aims at supporting policy makers in the implementation of their Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), with a focus on Cultural Heritage, to further integrate the smart specialisation community with a larger set of actors and institutions and finally, to discuss how to operationalise the alignment with complementary policies, exploiting synergies and finding more effective ways of working.

The workshop will have a mix of plenaries and parallel working groups.

The plenaries in the morning are intended to set the scene, to introduce what regional government and agencies (Lazio, Andalusia, Centre- Val de Loire and Norte) are doing in the scope of their RIS3s to address challenges and opportunities of cultural heritage and to present cases of innovation in the field of cultural heritage not directly related to smart specialisation but with possible links to be explored.

For more information please visit http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/-/smart-specialisation-and-cultural-heritage-an-engine-for-innovation-and-growth?inheritRedirect=true.

A new PCP project to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term

PREFORMA takes flight

On January 13th and 14th 2014, the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova hosted the PREFORMA Kick-off Meeting.

PREFORMA aims to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term. The main objective is to give memory institutions full control of the process of the conformity tests of files to be ingested into archives.

PREFORMA – PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives – is Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project co-funded by the European Commission, under its FP7-ICT Programme.

The consortium of PREFORMA is composed by 14 partners, from 9 European countries, ranging from the North to the South of the EU. Its good geographic spread is also complemented by a good scientific and technical spread of competences and expertise.

The Swedish National Archives is the coordinator of the project and leads the CSA-Sustainable Network WP. Promoter Srl is the Technical and Communication Coordinator, while the University of Padova is the Scientific Coordinator.

Project website: www.preforma-project.eu