The Time Machine FET Flagship has announced three significant strategic partnerships with Europeana Foundation, Indra Sistemas S.A. and Ubisoft, for the implementation of Time Machine’s Large-Scale Historical Simulator, which will map 5000 years of European history.
The Time Machine project capitalises on Europe’s unique cultural history to construct a technological platform that enables the intuitive navigation of Europe’s past through a variety of engaging interfaces. The three partnerships are fundamental to the project, providing expertise in digitisation, advanced machine learning and the creation of virtual worlds.
Ubisoft provides 30 years of experience in creating virtual worlds. This includes the well-known videogame series Assassin’s Creed®, which was developed with contributions from historical and architectural experts. Ubisoft’s expertise in creating immersive digital content could help to transform data obtained from the Time Machine project into a format that is accessible to the general public.
Europeana Foundation is the operator of Europeana, the digital platform for European cultural heritage that currently provides open access to over 50 million digitised objects, ranging from newspapers to musical instruments and ancient maps. Europeana Foundation will support Time Machine by expanding its catalogue of cultural artefacts across Europe. This partnership has been announced within the European Year of Cultural Heritage, highlighting the importance of Time Machine within the EU’s overall digital transformation strategy, particularly as a tool for widening cultural participation.
Indra is a Spanish information technology company, world leader in the development of comprehensive technological solutions in fields such as Defense & Security, Transport & Traffic, Energy & Industry, Telecommunications & Media, Financial Services and Public Administrations & Healthcare. Through its Minsait unit, it provides a response to the challenges of digital transformation. As a leading partner, Indra will help contribute the technological solutions behind Time Machine’s big data, multi-level information system. The project will rely on machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to create new layers of information, expressing the data through novel formats.
These key partnerships signify strong support for Time Machine’s large scale, visionary platform that will create an unparalleled free-to-use educational resource. The technological solutions produced as the project develops will also encourage innovation in other sectors, placing Europe as a world leader in the application of artificial intelligence.
Deborah Papiernik, SVP of New Business Development at Ubisoft, said:
The Time Machine project is a brilliant opportunity for us to employ our expertise in creating credible and immersive virtual worlds to transform the wealth of European cultural data into an engaging format for the general public.
Harry Verwayen, Executive Director of Europeana Foundation, said:
The Time Machine project is uniquely positioned to support us in our aim to ensure cultural heritage plays a pivotal role in the digital transformation of Europe. It is crucial that the next wave of technological innovations such as machine learning and AI are applied in ways that allow people to engage with their heritage based on trust and inclusion.
Jesús Angel García, Head of R&D at Indra, said:
The technological solutions formed through the Time Machine project will not only benefit the digital heritage sector, but will also lead to future initiatives across sectors.
The Time Machine FET Flagship’s inaugural conference took place on the 30-31st October in Lausanne, Switzerland. The event was free to attend and featured speakers from Ubisoft, Europeana Foundation, Indra and many more prestigious science, technology and cultural institutions. In addition to the presentations, the event showcased the most advanced technologies for cultural heritage and hosted an academy for local Time Machines.