The winning applications of the International Spotlight Heritage Student Contest 2022 were presented on Wednesday, November 16, within 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 by the Timiș County Council, while the partners of the competition were Aalborg University from Denmark and Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia from Italy.

During the competition, the students worked in international teams, consisting of representatives from each partner university, creating together a digital story in virtual reality and augmented/mixed 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 first winning project was 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 (master student at the Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), Eliana Maria Torre (PhD student at the Università di Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) and Peter Guld Leth, Oskar Bill Zhou (master students at the University of Aalborg, Denmark), – which involves a new user interface, the addition of a 3D map of the city, some new landmarks in Timișoara, audio included, and a major change to the way the user selects a location.

The second winning project was 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 ) – in which users can interact and learn more about certain artefacts 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 artefacts inside the boxes that are scattered all over the real environment.

The applications will be available for download and use on the Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality glasses and on the Microsoft Hololens 2 mixed reality glasses.

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

The projects were assessed by a jury composed of Dr. Diana Andone and Dr. Silviu Vert, Politehnica University of Timișoara, and Marius Cornea, National Museum of Banat, awarding prizes worth a total of 5000 euros. Also, the winners will be nominated at the EU Medea 2023 Awards, the student section, and at the Interactive Digital Media Student Contest 2023.