The contest involved a community of citizens in the city of Nocera Inferiore, Campania Region, who participated to an Open Data Challenge, promoted by Hetor team in collaboration with Nocera Municipal Administration.

It concerns the Cultural Heritage of Nocera territorial area and the aim is the promotion of the local territory via the use of Open Data, creating a series of open datasets capable of revealing some particular and unknown aspects of the city.

The challenge involved almost 40 people grouped into 12 teams.

The outcome has been the co-creation of a series of datasets containing information related to the local Cultural Heritage resources, collected from different sources, both oral and written ones, such as archives, libraries, museums, etc, (aggregation and disaggregation of data) in order to return them in an open format to the local communities, (e.g. traditional children’s games; the list of the medical records of an ex mental hospital situated in Nocera Inferiore; monuments and artistic places; ancient proverbs and terms in the local vernacular).

On the one hand, the main objective was the promotion of Cultural Heritage (tangible resources); on the other hand, the objective aimed to the preservation of the intangible resources in order to avoid their loss.

The co-created datasets can be improved and completed, both by authors and other citizens: they can be useful for people who want to do further research on the territory, stimulating the creation and collection of information and materials about the territory. They can be used even by people who want to promote the local resources because most datasets contains the location points; therefore, many maps can be created.

An important element that characterized the challenge has been the intergenerational aspect: elderly people working with young people (the process has been spontaneous and they didn’t know each other before); therefore the knowledge of the past and traditions combined with the technological skills.

The impact has been absolutely positive. The citizens have been enthusiastic, voluntarily engaged, participating with great passion. At the end of the challenge all of them have gained knowledge about their territory. Since the Municipal Library (that is part of the local PA) is considered by the local communities as a real point of convergence, its active collaboration within the challenge has been a crucial element for the success of this experience.