On Thursday, March 30, 2023, the Ambassador of Japan, Mr. Yoshio Yamawaki, and a delegation of the Embassy paid an important visit to the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) on the occasion of the “READ JAPAN PROJECT book donation”.
As part of Ambassador Yamawaki’s visit, the Ambassador and his entourage visited the Digital Heritage Research Laboratory (Digital Heritage Research Laboratory / UNESCO Headquarters “Mnemosyne”) which is based at the University. The Director of the UNESCO Chair Dr. Marinos Ioannides, the holder of the Chair of the Single European Space in Digital Heritage and Scientific Coordinator of the “Mnemosyne” Project, Prof. Kyriakos Efstathiou, and the Deputy Director of the UNESCO Chair, Dr. Athos Agapiou, gave short presentations on the activities of the Laboratory and its staff.
Dr. Ioannides referred in particular to the attraction of over 10 million euros in funding over the last decade that has led to important research projects whose results are channeled to society through the holistic digitization and documentation of memory. He also referred to the relations and potential synergies and collaborations between the two countries, Japan and Cyprus, on digital transformation and innovation issues.
Afterwards, the holder of the Chair of the Single European Area in Digital Cultural Heritage, Dr Kyriakos Efstathiou, referred to the MEMOSYNE project by giving a short presentation of the 17 case studies of the project and with one of them “the Antikythera Mechanism” he showed how exactly the next solar eclipse visible in Europe can be calculated.
The members of the delegation from the Embassy of Japan expressed their interest in the great work being done in Digital Heritage and in achieving future collaborations.
