The laboratories and conference rooms at the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences were packed when the Kick-Off Conference for the DAAD Ta'ziz projects took place at Pentecost. More than 50 guests came from the Middle East, such as from Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, among them professors and students from our partner universities. Still, also the German partner network, almost 30 students and 6 professors from the University of Darmstadt, the University of Bonn-Rhein-Sieg and the Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences Jena participated in the workshop "Digitization of Cultural Heritage" and the "Consolidating Meeting".
As part of a three-year research project, scientists and students are looking into how cultural heritage can be digitally preserved and thus protected from destruction by time but also due to political conflicts. For this purpose, the workshop "Digitization of Cultural Heritage" participants dealt with the latest technologies for photogrammetry. They practiced everything using the example of the Plauer Gate Tower at Nikolaiplatz in the city of Brandenburg. A Faro scanner was used to scan large buildings professionally in three dimensions. Further processing took place in Blender, a license-free 3D program that was thus accessible to all participating students.
In parallel, a group of university representatives met to confer on integrating joint, international research projects into local university structures and to establish a "Student Academy" within the framework of a distance learning platform. In the coming winter semester, the entire delegation will meet in Jordan to consider how to conserve cultural heritage there. In 2024, the delegation will move on to Lebanon and Iraq.
Special thanks go to these scientists for their inspiring presentations of their current research projects:
• Urban Cultural Heritage in the Middle East – The Old City of Aleppo (Dr. Sepideh Zarrin Ghalam - Technical University of Cottbus-Senftenberg)
• Digital Building Archeology, Baalbek Reborn and New Research on the Temple of Jupiter (Dipl. Ing. Henning Burwitz, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut)
• Future Technologies and Workflows in 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry (David Finsterwalder, Eleni Kofekidou – Neural Reality)
• Activities in Preserving Cultural Heritage in Jordan (Prof. Dr. Firas Alawneh, Hashemite University, Jordan)
• Introduction in the Work of Bait-Al-Anbat – The Forum of Cultural Interaction (Dr. Nadia Altowisat, Bait Al-Anbat, Wadi Musa, Jordan)
We were incredibly honored that the President of the University of Mosul, Dr. Kossay Alahmady and Dr. Idris Salih, former Minister of Education and Head of the Board of Trustees of Tishk International University of Erbil joined the conference with a friendly, down-to-earth and hands-on mentality. The University of Mosul currently has more enrolled students than the city of Brandenburg has residents and is the second-largest university of their nation. In 2015, 80% of the university was destroyed by IS. In the meantime, the region is steadily returning to normalcy and the members of the universities are happy to be able to participate in international university research projects.
Information about our DAAD funding and our partner network
Our university is honored to announce that we received two positive results for DAAD Ta’ziz project:
- DAAD Ta’ziz Short Term Measures – “Digitalization of Cultural Heritage” until end of 2023
In cooperation with:
- German Jordanian University
- Jordan University of Science and Technology
- Yarmouk University.
German partners: Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena, Hochschule Darmstadt
- DAAD Ta’ziz Science Cooperations – “Project Innovation Hub for MENA crisis regions” until end 2025
In cooperation with universities of the Middle East:
- Iraq: University of Mosul
- Kurdistan-Iraq: Tishk International University of Erbil
- Lebanon: American University of Beirut
- Jordan: German Jordanian University, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Hashemite University
In cooperation within the German partner Network of:
- Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg
- Hochschule Darmstadt
- Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule Jena