Italo-Canadian Symposium: New Trends in Protecting Cultural Heritage Using Digital Technology: Digital Twins and AI

by Aymen Aiblu  | July 3, 2026 | Ottawa, ON - Canada

On Friday, July 3, 2026, the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) hosted the Italo-Canadian Symposium titled "New Trends in Protecting Cultural Heritage Using Digital Technology: Digital Twins and AI" in collaboration with UNESCO Chair (Digital Twins for UNESCO World Heritage Conservation) and the Italian Embassy. The event took place at the Carleton University ARISE Atrium in Ottawa. As a PhD student working with CIMS under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mario Santana Quintero, I served on the organizing team to provide logistical support for the symposium. The event proceedings were officially cleared by the university's Risk Management Office prior to execution. This post serves to document the symposium's structure, theoretical focus, and the primary academic takeaways established during the sessions.

Symposium Context and Objectives 

The symposium was organized as part of the activities of the recently appointed UNESCO Research Chair on Digital Twins for World Heritage Conservation, a collaborative initiative between Carleton University and Universidad del Azuay. The central objective was to mobilize research supporting the design and implementation of digital twins for World Heritage conservation, specifically evaluating their role within the context of climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The program convened researchers from Canadian, Italian, and European institutions to examine both the technical capacities and the ethical challenges of using artificial intelligence and digital twins in heritage management.

Program Overview 

The symposium was structured into distinct analytical sessions. Following welcoming remarks from representatives of the Italian Embassy and Carleton University administration, the morning featured two keynote presentations: 

1.  Dr. Fulvio Rinaudo (Politecnico di Torino) presented on the operational intersection of artificial intelligence and human intelligence in documenting cultural heritage.

2.  Dr. Luigi Barazzetti (Politecnico di Milan) discussed the transition from raw data acquisition to knowledge-grounded digital twins for conservation practices.

Following the keynotes, the attendees were given a technical tour of the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) facilities.

The afternoon session centered on a roundtable discussion titled "People-Centred Digital Twins for World Heritage," moderated by Miquel Reina Ortiz (Université de Montréal). The panel integrated perspectives from international researchers, including Nicolas Arellano (CIMS), Maarten Bassier and Els Verstrynge (KU Leuven), Mona Hess (University of Bamberg), Tania Landes, Hélène Macher, and Arnadi Murtiyoso (INSA Strasbourg), and Erica Nocerino (University of Sassari).

Key Academic Takeaways 

The technical and theoretical boundaries of the current research were synthesized by the respondent, Prof. Stephen Fai (Director of CIMS). The concluding remarks established several critical operational principles for the future of digital twins in heritage conservation:

• Innovation vs. Aspiration: The development of digital twins must balance theoretical vision with practical innovation. Systems must be built around definitive use cases to progress up the maturity model, rather than relying solely on aspirational capabilities.

• Open Standards and Accessibility: A core directive for future platforms is that they must be based on open standards and open-source architecture. To remain inclusive and accessible to all operators, from scaffolding workers to data scientists, the tools should ideally be browser-based, eliminating the requirement for specialized computing hardware.

• Vendor Agnosticism: While proprietary software (such as Esri and Autodesk) remains prevalent, the community must focus on vendor-agnostic and interoperable solutions. This includes developing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) capable of extracting data from proprietary formats to prevent vendor lock-in.

• Federated Data and Sovereignty: Data management architectures should be federated rather than centralized. Institutions must retain sovereignty over their own data sets while maintaining the capability to cooperate and share data securely through established protocols.

Conclusion 

The symposium successfully fulfilled its objective of fostering dialogue among international specialists regarding the deployment of digital twins and AI in heritage environments. The operational principles established during the roundtable will inform the ongoing research directives of the UNESCO Chair and our subsequent work at CIMS.