The 14th MEDEA awards ceremony took place on Thursday, June 2, in Leuven City Hall, as part of the Media & Learning Conference 2022 organized by KU Leuven and the Media & Learning Association. 

Among the 2022 finalists is the team that developed the interactive virtual reality application developed within the International Spotlight Heritage Student Contest 2021, submitted by the Politehnica University of Timișoara, Romania and represented by Silviu Vert & Marius Tătaru during the ceremony.

The initiative belongs to the Politehnica University of Timișoara and was organised within the "Spotlight Heritage Timișoara 2021 - Fabric – Worlds beyond Destinies" project, funded in 2021 by the Timișoara Project Centre. Partners of the competition were Aalborg Universitet from Denmark and Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy.

The students worked in international teams, made up of a student representative from each partner university, and together created a digital story in virtual reality with the resources of the Spotlight Heritage Timișoara project, using existing artifacts, texts and multimedia stories, and also, integrating them into a virtual reality experience. The two teams that developed the application were formed by students Christian Bodskov and Oliver Engermann – Aalborg University, Denmark, Ilie-Silviu Berzescu and Marius-Cosmin Tătaru – Politehnica University of Timișoara, Doresita Marino and Luca Contardi – Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Watch a video about the application at:https://player.vimeo.com/video/718697519?dnt=1&app_id=122963

The winning applications contain a virtual tour of the "Precious Heartof Jesus" Roman Catholic Church in Bălcescu Square (Elizabetin historical neighborhood) and the Millennium Roman Catholic Church in Traian Square (Fabric historical neighborhood), in a 3D virtual space, with 360 images, old and new photos, audio elements, as well as information about the history and architecture of the buildings, the art objects inside them (paintings, stained glass windows, organs inside the churches), but also about the characters from history who left their mark in the construction, design and development of Timisoara buildings. All these elements are integrated into a unique and interactive virtual reality application through which the user can explore the churches through digital storytelling artifacts in virtual reality.

The applications can be downloaded and used on the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality glasses, but also on the Cospaces Edu web and mobile platform.

The Spotlight Heritage Timisoara resources used by students in developing the applications are available in Romanian and English on the website https://spotlight2022.7m.ro/ and in the mobile applications for Android and iOS found in the app stores with the name "Spotlight Timisoara".

Congratulations to all the finalists and a huge thank you to the organizers for the opportunity to be part of the finalists of the 2022 MEDEA Awards!

See the article about the event on the official page: https://media-and-learning.eu/event/medea-awards-2022/