In October 2021, the first brainstorming discussion with representatives of various stakeholders was organised in Kosice with the aim to identify the best was how to present archaeological sites through the new attractive virtual and augmented reality.

The implementation of the activities of project Virtual archaeological landscapes of the Danube Region supporting the implementation of new technologies that allows visualizing of archaeological knowledge continues in Slovakia thanks to the pro-active cooperation of the main project partner – Technical University of Kosice and supporting partners – East Slovak Museum in Košice and Kosice Self-Governing Region managing authority of all public museums.

During the first of planned session, on 24th of October, within the creative labs and hubs came various stakeholders from creative and technical industry, representatives of tourism sectors as well as historians and participants representing regional government bodies, to jointly discuss new ideas how we can develop the presentation of our history even more attractive for domestic and visitors from all over the world thanks to the opportunities which have been identified in new technologies enabling the application of virtual and augmented reality. 

The meeting was officially opened by the director of the East Slovak Museum in Košice, Robert Pollák, who welcomed all participants and expressed the great development chance coming to our region thanks to the project activities, enabling us to communicate a wide range of joint challenges with partners from abroad as well as on our regional and local level. The first session, moderated by Martin Dujčák, DAeL team member from TUKE, was devoted to the new technical innovations which have been applied with the museums all over the world and proved their positive effect according to the feedback of visitors. Presented and discussed were common devices as PC-stands, tablets and smartphones, as well as more innovative devices for virtual and augmented reality as e.g. VR headset and holograms. 

The aim of this discussion was to bring together experts from different areas to brainstorm about the best way how to virtualize archaeological sites and to choose which sites are the most presentable.   
Following the session, led by Mr Rákoš, the main archaeologist of East-Slovak Museum, introduced the two possible archaeological sites which have been identified as the best options to be digitised thanks to the opportunities provided by the DAeL project – burial ground in Rankovce and fortified settlement in Zemplín.  
All the stakeholders provided very interesting feedback to the presented opportunities, both for technical aspects as well as the historical importance of the proposed sites. Very interesting and broadly discussed was the idea to present the story describing the life of German warrior the grave of whom is located in our region and which can be very well described in detail information about his armour, clothing and lifestyle. The cultural habits could be presented to the public thanks to a virtual ceremony of a burial which would provide us with the introduction of spiritual life in that period. 

As the next step, all of the ideas will be analysed and prioritized. Following that, the implementation plan including selected steps will be done and deeply discussed within the planned next session of creative labs and hubs, which enable to joint meeting of stakeholders during October 2021.