The cultivation of customs, events and stories creates history and a sense of belonging for the local people. On the occasion of the wedding of King Ludwig I and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen in 1810 on a meadow on the outskirts of Munich, the Oktoberfest was founded on the “Theresienwiese”. Today, the largest folk festival in the world helps to ensure that Bavarian traditions such as lederhosen and dirndls are known internationally and strengthens the identification of citizens as Munich residents and Bavarians.
The history of a country is therefore not only based on hard facts, but above all on the stories of the people in the cities and regions. But history can be lost if the writing on old paper documents fades, the archive is neglected or citizens pass away. Digitisation is an opportunity to preserve history.
The “TwinBy – Digital Twins for Bavaria” project of the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs enabled the town of Pressath in the Upper Palatinate, located in the north of Bavaria, to preserve its history. With the help of aconium GmbH, a master portal was implemented to integrate municipal data from different, decentrally stored or generated sources. In this way, a digital twin is gradually being created that serves as Pressath’s “digital memory”. The scattered and mostly analog knowledge about the town and its inhabitants is thus collected centrally and made easily accessible to the public.
The central digital archive gives schoolchildren and visitors in particular the opportunity to get to know the town of Pressath better, as many stories are still “hidden” in the local history museum, for example. In addition to the digitisation of historical files, there are also plans to set up analogue signs with a QR code. This will allow citizens and tourists to quickly and easily find out more about the respective places or residents of the town using their smartphone.
The “digital memory” of the over 1000-year-old town of Pressath is currently still under construction and will be made accessible to the public via the town’s homepage.
Background of the project
With a total funding volume of around one million euros, 17 projects from 13 individual municipalities and four municipal associations were supported, according to the Bavarian State Ministry for Digital Affairs. The participating municipalities received consulting and coaching services from selected service providers for professional and technical implementation as well as funding of up to 50,000 euros for individual municipalities and up to 75,000 euros for cross-local projects.
The Bavaria-wide project also promoted exchange between the municipalities so that the stakeholders can benefit from each other’s experiences. An accompanying training programme ensures that work with and on the digital twins can continue after the end of the project.