image: the winning teams with jury and organizing committee
Photoconsortium, together with SECreTour project, Europeana, UNESCO Chair of the Università della Svizzera Italiana in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in world heritage sites and UNESCO Chair of the Università di Genova in Anthropology of Health, Biosphere and Healing Systems, organized on 25th October 2025 in Lugano a exciting day of creativity and reflections about the role of open access collections in digital storytelling supporting heritage tourism (natural, cultural and intangible).
Beyond Borders Hackathon invited university students and young digital creators interested in digital cultural heritage, social science and humanities, cultural promotion and sustainable tourism to deliver a creative proposal using the vast collections available on the Europeana website, inspired by SECreTour’s mission to promote sustainable, engaging and creative tourism as a driver for a better future in rural and remote areas.
The general theme was “Exploring Insubria, and other cultural corridors through digital heritage collections“.
After welcome messages by the hosting organization USI Università della Svizzera italiana and an opening presentation by Photoconsortium vice president Antonella Fresa, that introduced the context of digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector and how digital resources in 2D and 3D can be leveraged to support tourism promotion, the floor was given to prof. Adine Gavazzi (USI, UNIGE) who described the cross-border heritage of Insubria, with a focus on the history and traditions of Monte San Giorgio. After that, Fiona Mowat (Europeana Foundation) guided participants in exploring Europeana’s open-access collections and reusable cultural datasets so to identify themes linked with cross-border heritage and identities.
The scope of the creative works was to design novel approaches to communicate the concept of geocultural heritage of Insubria and deliver stories incorporating digital storytelling, participatory approaches, responsible tourism and traditions from rural communities.
The student teams worked all day on their creative projects, and presented them to the jury, composed of David Iglesias Franch (CRDI Ajuntament de Girona and Photoconsortium President), Alexandra Bitusikova (Matej Bel University), Anna Siri (UNESCO Chair). Eventually, two creative projects were awarded ex aequo, and the teams received a monetary prize and the opportunity of transforming their projects into showcase editorials to be published in Europeana, on Photoconsortium website, in the dedicated space of SECreTour hosted by digitalmeetsculture.net magazine, and promoted by the two UNESCO Chairs.
