Thanks to its history and heritage, France benefits from fertile ground for the development of technological innovations for cultural institutions. They enrich content, boost the public experience and allow visitors to discover heritage in an engaging way. A real lever for the democratization of culture, the use of digital tools has accelerated since the Covid-19 crisis. To take stock of initiatives in this area, La French Touch brought together Anne-Sophie Braud, head of the Digital Culture Support division at the Institut Français, Bruno De Sa Moreira, co-founder of Histovery, Frédéric Mazelly, director of cultural programming at La Villette Paris, Déborah Papiernik, senior vice-president in charge of partnerships and strategic alliances at Ubisoft and Anne Villette Raoul-Duval Senior Investment Director at Bpifrance, on the stage of We Are French Touch (WAFT).

With the HistoPad, Histovery takes the visitor on a journey into the past

« Technology can do culture a real service », proclaims Bruno De Sa Moreira, co-founder ofHistory. Since 2013, the pioneering start-up of "enhanced visits" has been re-enchanting the user experience of cultural heritage thanks to its interactive tablet: the HistoPad. " Today, augmented visits are offered in around twenty places such as the Château de Chambord, the Palais des Papes in Avignon or the Conciergerie in Paris.. “, explains the leader. Thanks to augmented reality, Histovery brings the lost past back to life. " It is a French Touch tool that highlights our heritage to visitors from all over the world or exports it to visitors in order to encourage them, tomorrow, to discover France. »

With its Discovery Tour series, Ubisoft transforms its video games into educational resources

Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Viking Age… With its Discovery Tours, Ubisoft offers a real dive into history. " We take the world we created for our video games and we make it an educational version in which we remove everything that is related to the gameplay. », explains Ubisoft’s senior vice president of partnerships and strategic alliances. Designed by historians, professors and experts, the various Discovery Tours cover topics ranging from art and architecture to philosophy, politics and religion. « We learn more if we see how things happened “, justifies Déborah Papiernik.

With the Micro-Folies, culture adapts to each territory

A 100% digital museum. This device, imagined in 2017, allows visitors to access the collections of 12 national institutions as well as several regional and European collections free of charge via digital tools. " The device is very simple and that is its major advantage. It can be installed in media libraries for example," specifies Frédéric Mazelly, director of cultural programming at La Villette Paris, who coordinates this project. Enough to allow audiences in rural or peri-urban areas to access culture, close to home. " Thanks to Micro-Madness, it is the museum that comes to them ". If more than 200 of these establishments have already opened their doors, the Ministry of Culture aims to deploy 1 throughout France in the coming years.