The i-Treasures project: capturing the intangible through Information and Communication Technologies

After the promulgation of the UNESCO Convention (2003) the preservation and safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) became a priority in many national and international programmes. The Convention itself clearly states that these expressions need to be protected and safeguarded, suggesting the member states endeavour to promote "educational, awareness raising and information programmes" aimed not just to the communities and groups concerned, but also to the wide public, and in particular to young people. The paper describes the effort put by the the i-Tresures project to widen the educational opportunities and orient educational interventions to different publics (not just apprentices). the i-Treasures project tries to go beyond the current practice by developing "an open and extendable platform providing access to ICH resources, enabling knowledge exchange between researchers and contributing to the transmission of rare know-how from Living Human Treasures to apprentices" (Dimitropoulos 2013) . This means that the project aims at going far beyond the simple ICT-enhanced dissemination and the mere digitization of cultural contents; it, rather, aims at analyzing and modeling the different ICHs thus supporting the learning of the rare know how behind them and its passing down to new generation