The winning applications of the  International Spotlight Heritage Student Contest 2022 were presented on Wednesday, November 16, 2022in a hybrid format, in the presence of students and pupils, as well as specialists from the university, industry and Timisoara companies, as part of the Interactive Digital Media Student Contest 2022.

The initiative belongs to the Politehnica University of Timișoara and was organized within the project "Spotlight Heritage Timișoara 2022 - Cetate neighborhood - A world in the mirror", financed in 2022 by the Project Center of the Municipality of Timișoara and the Timiș County Council, the partners of the competition were Aalborg University from Denmark, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia from Italy and Kauno technologios universitetas from Lithuania.

During the competition, the students worked in international teams, consisting of one student representative from each partner university, creating together a digital story in virtual reality with the resources of the Spotlight Heritage Timișoara project, using artefacts, text and multimedia stories and integrating them into a virtual reality experience.

The two prizes for the International Spotlight Heritage Student Contest (eXtended Reality) section were offered by the initiator of the project Patrimoniul sub Reflectoare Timișoara/Spotlight Heritage Timișoara, a project co-financed by the Project Center of the Municipality of Timișoara and Timiș County Council and went to the following projects that developed digital storytelling applications in virtual and augmented reality:

Explore Timișoara in VR.

Explore Timișoara in VR is an application developed by Marius-Cosmin Tătaru, Sorina Zorita Gavriliuc-Voina, Radu-Dorian Stamatoiu (PhD students at the Politehnica University of Timișoara, Romania), Giulia Innocentini and Eliana Maria Torre (PhD students at the Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia , Italy) and Peter Guld Leth, Oskar Bill Zhou (master students at the University of Aalborg, Denmark), – and it involves a new user interface, the addition of a 3D map of the city, some new objectives in Timișoara, audio included, and a major change to the way an user selects a location.

Timișoara quest in XR.

Timișoara quest in XR is a virtual environment developed by Silviu Berzescu (master's student at the Politehnica University of Timișoara), Maria Toloni (master's student at the Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), Mikkel Sang Mee Baunsgaard (master's student at the University of Aalborg, Denmark ) – where users can interact and learn more about certain objects from the heritage of the National Museum of Banat. All the content of the application is superimposed on reality and users can also see the environment around them. The user can interact with the objects inside the boxes that are scattered all over the real environment.

See more details about the rules and contest here: International Spotlight Heritage Student Contest 2022.