How technology is helping to teach young people about heritage crafts

How can old traditional crafts be promoted among the young, technology-driven generation?

In this week’s Futuris, Euronews spoke with Xenophon Zabulis, a computer scientist at the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas in Greece, to find out about the innovative ideas they have come up with to engage today’s youth with some past traditions.

Some of the things the scientists have come up with include an interactive book that describes and shows people how glassmaking was done in France years ago - and also an old dial-up telephone that allows users to hear voices from the past.

It is all part of project Mingei, that explores the possibilities of representing and making accessible both tangible and intangible aspects of craft as cultural heritage.

Mingei is aiming to capture the motion and tool usage of heritage crafts practitioners, from living human treasures and archive documentaries, in order to preserve and illustrate skill and tool manipulation.

The information will then be available through compelling presentations, using storytelling and educational applications, based on AR and MR and the Internet.

Watch some of the demonstrations in the player above.