Harry Verwayen has been Executive Director of the Europeana Foundation since May 2018.
Europeana Collections is the largest digital repository of cultural data in the world. It provides access to over 60 million digitised items – books, paintings, photographs, recordings and films from over 3,700 contributing cultural heritage organisations across Europe.

In this second interview for Technoculture Podcast, Harry Verwayen speaks about what Europeana does for science professionals and how science professionals can contribute to Europeana’s work and mission.
Furthermore the different tools to research materials on Europeana are presented and other third parties platforms displaying Europeana content are also mentioned.
Finally, the topic of climate change is mentioned and Harry explains what Europeana is already doing to reduce the digital carbon footprint.

Highlights from the episode

2:01 “My big dream is that we can collect big data of the past, and that digital humanities researchers can mine that and find new patterns, that will change the way in which we think about history, and perhaps even inform the future.”

3:14 European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)

3:15 DARIAH and CLARIN

5:22 Quoting Michael Edson, Co-founder and Associate Director of the Museum for the United Nations: “If we win slow, we lose.”

6:30 Quoting Michael Edson: “In the next 10-20 years, nobody will remember the product. They will remember the network that came up with new solutions for the challenges we’re facing today.”

Creating value from cultural data in the age of digital transformation

Harry Verwayen spoke on Technoculture Podcast for the first time in 2018 which was the European Year of Cultural Heritage and it coincided with the 10th anniversary of Europeana.

In this episode, you will hear Harry presenting Europeana’s objectives; explaining how they have changed during the past decades; speaking about who supports Europeana and what it does for the communities of users across the world.
Finally you will know more about Harry’s opinion on how to combine culture and economy in a virtuous way.

External Resources

The episode was originally published on this page, where you can find a full transcript, a summary of contents, selected quotes, and more.

Access Europeana new website here.

Europeana Supercharging Strategy 2020.

Go back to Technoculture Podcast Introductory article

Featured image credit: Federica Bressan

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Federica Bressan

Federica Bressan is a Fulbright scholar and a Marie Curie alumna. Her background is in Cultural Heritage and Computer Science. The vision underlying her research concerns the co-evolution of technology and culture. Her main expertise is in the field of multimedia preservation, with a special attention for audio and interactivity. She works between New York and Brussels.

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