Healthy mind in a healthy body in the digital age

In order to maintain and increase the exposure of the special collection and its disposal to the citizens, the Thessaloniki Olympic Museum in cooperation with PostScriptum implements under the NSRF and the Operational Programme "Digital Convergence", the project "Healthy mind in a healthy body in the digital age".

The aim of the project was to create the first digital exhibition in Greece based on the history of the Olympic Games. The main goal of the exhibition was to document, digitize and highlight the Greek element in the Olympic Games. It consists, finally, an open invitation to the public for knowledge and participation with the use of new multimedia applications.

An important innovation of the project is the crowdsourcing application, which gives an opportunity for people from around the world to participate in developing the content of the museum, offering their testimony, and highlights the multicultural dimension of the Games through the application “I was there”. It also highlights the pioneering nature of an action that does not hesitate to apply the so-called “global strategies” in the cultural field.

The project also includes the virtual exhibition"A healthy mind in a healthy body”, which presents the history of the Games as a timeline, digitization and scientific documentation of more than 2435 objects, which were demanded by the programme, optimization of the website of the Museum in accordance with the modern functional requirements, mobile application for smartphones, which is a special version of the exhibition "A healthy mind in a healthy body", as well as enrichment of Wikipedia, the global encyclopedia.

Finally, an original action under the project was the event “Culture Hack” which was based on a collaborative initiative. The organization of the "Culture Hack" enabled technological, cultural and creative partners of the Museum’s ecosystem to submit ideas and discuss experimental products. The main theme of the workshop was hacking and ideas for solving problems and pilot projects through brainstorming, in order to understand the technological possibilities and open data. The result has been a fruitful dialogue on the theme. Noteworthy was the interest of teachers, which was deeply appreciated by the Museum. The teachers and the Museum discussed also the possibility of including in the educational program of the Museum for the coming school year, the participation of schools interested in creating applications and experimental products based on the collection of the Museum.