Cultural Heritage Innovation Labs in Africa

Innovation Labs in cultural heritage institutions emerged in the last years as specialized units which help researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, innovators and any interested citizens and communities to use digital collections in innovative ways. These labs answer two major needs, helping discovery in vast digital collections, and applying new analytic/visualization tools by a wider user base, a process which stirs creative use and reuse of collections and innovation.Most active innovation labs are located in Europe and North America.This dataset was compiled using published reports on innovation labs and internet sources from the public domain between May 2019 and July 2019 by Fidelity Phiri, a visiting researcher at UCL Qatar for projects coordinated by Dr Milena Dobreva. The dataset helps to understand the cultural heritage innovation labs landscape in Africa. While at the time of publishing (20 August 2020) there are no active innovation labs in cultural heritage institutions, one library (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt) and one museum (Livingstone museum, Zambia) are planning to open such labs. Within this specific setting, the research on Africa aimed to identify stakeholders which can support the setting of innovation labs in cultural heritage institutions. Innovation centres, business incubators and fablabs can play such a role. The rationale for including these institutions is that they could be instrumental for setting up cultural heritage labs on a continent where more work is needed to overcome the digital divide.This map illustrates the dataset. https://www.mapcustomizer.com/map/Innovation labs in Africa

近年来，文化遗产机构中的创新实验室（Innovation Labs）作为专业化单元应运而生，旨在帮助研究人员、艺术家、企业家、教育工作者、创新者以及所有有兴趣的民众与社区以创新方式利用馆藏数字资源。此类实验室可满足两大核心需求：一是助力用户在海量数字馆藏中开展探索，二是帮助更广泛的用户群体运用新型分析与可视化工具，这一过程将推动馆藏资源的创造性利用与再利用，并激发创新活力。
目前多数活跃的创新实验室集中于欧洲与北美地区。本数据集由卡塔尔伦敦大学学院（UCL Qatar）访问研究员菲德尔·菲里（Fidelity Phiri）编撰完成，其参与的由米莱娜·多布雷瓦博士（Dr Milena Dobreva）统筹协调的研究项目，于2019年5月至7月间依托已发表的创新实验室相关报告与公共领域互联网资源完成数据采集工作。
本数据集旨在帮助学界了解非洲地区文化遗产创新实验室的发展格局。尽管在本数据集发布之时（2020年8月20日），非洲地区的文化遗产机构中尚无正式运营的创新实验室，但埃及亚历山大图书馆（Bibliotheca Alexandrina）与赞比亚利文斯通博物馆（Livingstone Museum）已计划开设此类实验室。
针对非洲地区的此项研究旨在识别能够为文化遗产机构创新实验室建设提供支持的利益相关方，创新中心、商业孵化器与微观装配实验室（fab labs）均可承担此类角色。纳入此类机构的核心理由在于，在非洲这个仍需投入更多资源弥合数字鸿沟的大陆，它们可为文化遗产创新实验室的搭建提供关键助力。
本数据集的分布情况可通过以下地图查看：https://www.mapcustomizer.com/map/Innovation labs in Africa