n September 27 and 28, the Polytechnic University of Timișoara, together with the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education and UPT Campus Creativ, through the Spotlight Heritage Timișoara cultural project, participated in the European Researchers' Night 2024 and Open Campus Night 2024.

The two dynamic events, focusing on experiential learning, offered thousands of people the opportunity to discover Timisoara in the digital world and beyond, discovering unique digital applications, dynamic installations and VR and MR applications branded Timisoara Spotlight Heritage/Spotlight Heritage Timisoara, becoming virtual tourists in the digital world!

All these have been realized by students and professors from the Politehnica University of Timișoara, in partnership with international students and international faculties from the European University Alliance E³UDRES², local and international artists and not only, creating a complex portfolio of objects, applications, installations and creative projects.

European Researchers' Night 2024 Timisoara

On September 27, a new edition of the European Researchers' Night (NCE) took place this year at the Nokia Campus, hosting dozens of partners and guests who invited the general public to take a foray into the world of science through unforgettable experiences. 

This year, the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education, together with the cultural project Spotlight Heritage Timisoara created an immersive space for the participants, where the public could discover different digital projects and installations created by students from the Politehnica University of Timisoara, in partnership with international students from the European University Alliance E³UDRES².

Over 1600 people, from energetic and enthusiastic children to curious parents who wanted to try and experience the digital applications and installations in the dedicated space, and students had the opportunity to present their projects and examples from the study program I Living Labs.

These include:

• People's stories and 5 historic districts from Timișoara;
• Interactive edutainment, mobile and mixed reality applications;
• Latest applications Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (AR/MR) Spotlight Heritage Timisoara;
• Games in AR, where they could interact with historical objects from the city's cultural heritage, from the archive of the Banat National Museum.

Creative Campus Night 2024

The Open Campus Night was organized on 28 September and brought the UPT Technical Museum into the spotlight, giving the public the opportunity to discover the museum's exhibits, physics and chemistry experiments and more. 

For all those who could not attend the European Researchers' Night, Spotlight Heritage Timisoara, through the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education, in partnership with UPT Campus Creativ, has prepared for them another unforgettable evening. Over 300 visitors had another chance to interact with the digital applications and installations realized over the years.

In addition to the attractions already presented at the European Researchers' Night 2024, the public also discovered:

• Spotlight Heritage Timisoara - 𝐓𝐓𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐳𝐢𝐞𝐢: discovering Timisoara through poetry and color (artist: Marius Jurca, 13m10j);
• 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐈 𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧: a dynamic virtual garden with virtual plants and mushrooms (artists: Anna Dumitriu & Alex May, in collaboration with CAPABLE Project and BioArt Revolution);
• History of information technologies: they visited MECIPT-1, the first university computer in Romania, but also all the other technological devices to see with their own eyes the technological evolution of our era;
• History of computers through Plan Zero - Retro IT - Computer Museum, which invited visitors to discover old computers, both Romanian from the CIP/HC range, as well as a number of laptops from the 80s and 90s, most of them functional;
• Center for interactive presentation of physical phenomena ExperimentariumTM - discovering physical phenomena and experiments that allowed participants to become active explorers, increasing their confidence in their own ability to understand how the universe works;
• International scientific applications, presented by UPT partners in the E³UDRES² European University Alliance and E³UDRES² Ent-r-e-novators partners.

Projects with impact for the European community

Polytechnic University of Timișoara openly and actively supports personal and academic development for all its students and partners, therefore international partnerships with partners such as the European University Alliance E³UDRES² and E³UDRES² Ent-r-e-novators, are a part of UPT offering as many opportunities as possible through study programs such as I Living Labs - which are extracurricular course units in which teams of students work on a challenge.

The European University Alliance E³UDRES², as well as its partners, aim to actively develop all partner institutions and their regions by creating opportunities for students, staff and citizens to get involved in their communities.

Digital components of the project Spotlight Heritage Timisoara/Spotlight Heritage Timisoara are accessible online at https://spotlight-timisoara.eu/ and through mobile apps that can be downloaded from Android and Apple stores or by searching "Spotlight Heritage Timisoara".

• App link for Android users: https://is.gd/SjiIgv   
• App link for iOS users: https://is.gd/y6JxeV   

Event information is also available on:

• Web page: https://spotlight-timisoara.eu/ 
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SpotlightHeritageTimisoara/  
• Twitter: @spotlight_TM21 
• Instagram: @spotlight_tm

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Spotlight Heritage Timișoara / Patrimoniul sub reflectoare is a digital cultural initiative of the Politehnica University of Timișoara in partnership with the National Museum of Banat, part of the Cultural Program Timișoara 2023 European Capital of Culture. Cultural project co-financed by the Municipality of Timisoara through the Project Center, Timis County Council, Ministry of Culture, EAA and Norway Grants.

"Enhance: UPT Campus Creativ is a project initiated by the AC League and Timisoara Polytechnic University which is part of the national cultural program "Timisoara - European Capital of Culture in 2023", financed by the Legacy Timisoara 2023 program, implemented by the Project Center of the Municipality of Timisoara with funds allocated from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Culture.

13m10j (Marius Jurca - b. November 2, 1984), is a new media artist from Timișoara, Romania, concerned with the connections between art, science and technology. He uses numbers, codes, sounds and algorithms to capture the complexity of personal mental flow and to translate user activity into three-dimensional virtual objects. His projects are presented as interactive applications or programs, created in direct relation to technical specifications 

Physic AI Garden Credit: Anna Dumitriu and Alex May in collaboration with the CAPABLE Project. The CAPABLE project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 875052. Materials: Computer generated video. Year: 2023.