On 30 September 2021, the House of Emerging Technologies in Torino hosted the 5GTOURS Industrial Workshop “Torino – The touristic city” in a hybrid format, gathering more than 50 participants including attendees in the presence and online.
The aim of the workshop was to inform the local verticals (museums, cultural organizations, innovation centres, …) about the opportunities offered by the use cases developed by 5GTOURS in the fields of augmented reality/virtual reality, robotics, broadcasting and remote video production and distribution applied to the cultural and tourist sectors. The ultimate goal was to stimulate a conversation on the benefits, usability and long-term sustainability of such solutions.
The works were opened by the perspective of the verticals involved in the 5GTOURS implementation on the Turin site. In particular, Fondazione Torino Musei, hosting in Palazzo Madama and GAM (the museum of ancient art and the modern art gallery in Torino) several 5G enabled applications, stressed the importance of developing an innovative approach in the daily work of the museum staff in order to improve several types of activities, from the educational offer to the security of collections and spaces.
RAI, the Italian national broadcasting corporation, in turn, stressed the challenges of live broadcasting as well as the great opportunities that a faster network could offer to live shows in terms of accessibility and quality of video and audio contents.
After a lively presentation of the 5GTOURS use cases by the project partners, including videos and demos of the applications, the audience was invited to reflect upon the presented solutions from the perspective of their “everyday work”, but also looking at the future of the tourist and cultural sectors vis-à-vis the universe of emerging technologies and innovations.
Among the most active participants to the conversation, interesting contributions came from Museo Pietro Micca, Urban Lab, Polo del ‘900, Associazione Abbonamento Musei and Fondazione Torino Musei.
The discussion was facilitated by Fondazione Links, an organization external to the 5GTOURS consortium, but with relevant experience in the topic of 5G applied to culture also thanks to their involvement in the INVENTA project.
The main outcomes of the workshop, which represent valuable food for thought for the 5GTOURS partners, identify on the one side the great potential of the presented solutions in terms of accessibility, storytelling potential (e.g. history of places in different areas) but also in terms of security and facility management.
On the other hand, the technological obsolescence, the scarce interest of certain types of audiences and the difficult sustainability of some applications in the long period emerged as key issues that the 5GTOURS consortium has to tackle in order to grant full applicability to its use cases.
The Industrial workshop was just one of the opportunities to dialogue with the end-users of the 5GTOURS solutions, many more will come in 2022 with the actual on-site trials in Torino.
The recording of the workshop is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZ6vK0ue44&ab_channel=5G-TOURS
