With great success were fulfilled the operations of the International Conference “Digital Challenges for Museum Experts” organized by the Hellenic Open University in 22th September 2015 at the Gate Athens Hotel in Athens.

Website: http://ecultskills-conference.eap.gr/

The Conference was organized in the context of the eCult Skills project: http://ecultskills.eu/ which investigates the emergence of new job roles as a result of the latest ICT developments and their adoption by the museums, and aims to present project outcomes and discuss possible exploitation routes.

The conference gathered scholars, museum professionals, museum representatives, organizations and networks, and ICT researchers and engineers creating a forum to meet and exchange experiences, ideas and plans on the interplay between Culture and Technology.

At the beginning of the Conference was attended many officials gave a welcome speech such as Dr. Jenny Albani, the Vice President of the Hellenic Committee of ICOM/ Directorate of  Museums, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Mrs. Lila de Chaves, the President of Heritage & Museums/ member of the Board of Trustees of European Museum Forum and Dr. Vasileios Dagdillelis, the President of National Organization for the Certification of Qualifications and Vocational Guidance in Greece.

The conference contained three sessions and workshops. The first Session entitled “Outcomes and the impact of the eCult Skills Project” were presented the research results from the participant countries of the project. In the second Session  with the title “Museums in the digital era” we had museum representatives from different and diverse museums (national, foreign, small-sized, university museum, public or private) portraying their own perspective, through case studies, showing applications, DB, installations and educational programmes based on the new technologies. In the third session divided at two basic groups of speakers we had the opportunity to host universities/ academics and VET institutions that presented the currently provided study programmes/ curricula/ skills needed for the museum expert. The ICT experts testified their experience from collaborating with museums underlying the demanded qualifications regarding ICT and Culture.  In addition to the sessions, in the final workshops a fruitful discussion was developed among partners of the Project, audience and speakers aiming at the evaluation of the job role profiles and the evaluation of the exploitation potential of the project outcomes.

It is noteworthy that entries surpassed all expectations of the organizing committee and 150 participants flocked to the conference venue. The participants in their assessment expressed the most enthusiastic comments on the selection of the speakers, the themes, the space and the logistical organization. To all participants were issued a handbag with material of hardcopies and cd of the Conference Proceedings.

The content and the themes of the Conference were received ample recognition of the presence and contribution of  prominent professors, museum employees, ICT experts, Researchers and Boarding members in national & international committees while the papers showed great scientific interest.