This session brings individuals with solid trajectories in planning, developing, and implementing information technologies in preparedness and mitigation of disasters and now pandemics. Multidisciplinary academia, not-for-profit and industry contributors will provide their opinions about how World Heritage Sites can prepare for these potential calamities. The group has also actively participated in the OWH´s transformation Information Technologies theme, and the policy recommendations and toolkits being developed for monitoring and presentation of WH sites and their relationship to these disasters and pandemics will be discussed.

MODERATOR: Mario Santana - Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS), Carleton University, Professor and Secretary General at International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) (in)

SPEAKERS & CASE STUDIES

ASIA Joe Kallas, Emergency Documentation Mission of Historic Beirut post-explosion, DGA Lebanon / BBHR2020; Core Team Member, Our World Heritage / Transformational Information Technologies – Beirut Blast: An Emergency Documentation (Lebanon)

ASIA Prof. Takeyuki Okubo, Professor at the College of Science and Engineering, Director of the Institute of Disaster Mitigation for Urban Cultural Heritage, Ritsumeikan University, (R-DMUCH) (Japan)

NORTH AMERICA Elizabeth Lee, Cyark Core Team Member, Our World Heritage / Transformational Information Technologies (USA)

NORTH AMERICA Rebecca Napolitano, Assistant Professor, Penn State University, Core Team Member, Our World Heritage / Transformational Information Technologies; Daniele Paulino, Ph.D. Student in the Department of Architectural Engineering at Penn State University – United States of America (USA)

LATIN AMERICA Bernadette Devilat L., Research Fellow in Architectural and Urban Heritage, Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Global Heritage, Nottingham Trent University, Core Team Member, Our World Heritage / Transformational Information Technologies – Chile, Advanced recording technologies for post-earthquake-damage assessment and re-construction in Chilean heritage areas (Chile)

EUROPE Bijan Rouhani, AMENA Researcher, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Vice-President of the Scientific Committee on Risk Preparedness of ICOMOS (ICOMOS-ICORP), and Vice-Chair of the ICOMOS Working Group for Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Syria and Iraq; representative of ICOMOS on the International Board of the Blue Shield; Director of AMAL in Heritage at Global Heritage Fund (GHF) Mentor, Our World Heritage / Transformational Information Technologies – United Kingdom (EAMENA Region)

EUROPE Aziliz Vandesande, Postdoctoral researcher, KU Leuven | Faculty of Engineering Science, Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation Scientific Coordinator of H2020 Project, ILUCIDARE.