APAC Intangible Heritage Information Gathered in One Place

UNESCO Asia-Pacific Intangible Cultural Heritage Center Digital Platform Development Accelerates
Malaysia, Mongolia, Vietnam Selected as First Project Target Countries

Epic of Doston in Uzbekistan

The project to build a digital platform that consolidates information on intangible cultural heritage in the Asia-Pacific region is set to accelerate.

The UNESCO Asia-Pacific Intangible Cultural Heritage Centre announced on the 15th that it has launched the 'ichLinks' project. ichLinks is a coined term combining intangible cultural heritage (ich) and links, representing a digital platform. It was designed to share intangible heritage data, content, and materials held by member countries, and to provide sustainable services. The goal is to create added value through organic connections of information via metadata management and content curation.

Indian Folk Performance

This year, the Centre identified the status of major intangible heritage institutions and selected seven primary target countries that hold substantial related information and materials: Malaysia, Mongolia, Vietnam, India, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Fiji. Additionally, through a research service, a survey was conducted to inquire about willingness to participate in the project, receiving positive responses from 21 Asia-Pacific countries. An official stated, "We plan to increase the number of target countries annually."

The Centre will focus on planning the development of cooperation models and platform development with partner institutions from the first participating countries. Next year, an operational council will be launched together with the participating countries. They will jointly plan content and develop various cooperative projects based on this. By 2023, the goals are ▲system advancement ▲expansion of target countries to 20 ▲establishment of a platform operation system that activates both online and offline operations. Kim Ki-hyung, Secretary-General of the Centre, said, "This will be the first step in a long-term project to gather and utilize intangible heritage content from each country."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.