Following the event on October 14, 2025, in Venticano (BN), dedicated to the cultural and social future of inland areas and the role of the Appian Way – Regina Viarum (Queen of Roads) – as an engine for sustainable development, the discussion on diffused cultural heritage continued in Benevento with the CROMO – CROwdsourced MOnitoring of distributed Cultural Resources – project event, held on Thursday, October 23, 2025, in the Sala Vergineo of the Museo del Sannio.
This initiative aims to innovate the way diffused cultural heritage is monitored, protected, and enhanced through the active participation of communities and the use of advanced digital technologies.
Funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) as part of the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) and coordinated by the Regional Information Communication Technology Center – CeRICT scrl, the project involves the Departments of Computer Science (DI), Cultural Heritage Sciences (DiSPaC), and Industrial Engineering (DIIN) of the University of Salerno, with the participation of the companies CityOpenSource and QuantumNet, a technology partner engaged in the development of solutions based on artificial intelligence and automatic data analysis.
The event represented an important moment for discussion between research, innovation, and the local territory, with a program rich in presentations dedicated to the digital and participatory enhancement of cultural heritage.
Following the institutional greetings from Nino Lombardi, President of the Province of Benevento, and the introduction by Francesco Nardone (Futuridea), the proceedings were opened by Vittorio Scarano (CeRICT – University of Salerno), who illustrated the general vision of the project and its collaborative approach.
Among the most significant contributions was the speech by the Director of QuantumNet, Eng. Alfredo Troiano, who highlighted the role of artificial intelligence as a support tool for the recognition and classification of damage in cultural heritage. Troiano illustrated the potential of AI and machine learning systems applied to heritage monitoring, emphasizing how these technologies can facilitate the early diagnosis of deterioration and contribute to more effective and sustainable conservation strategies.
During the afternoon, there were also presentations by Alfonso Santoriello, Carmine Spagnuolo, Ilaria Vitellio, Gaetano Caivano, Andrea Amorosini, Dario De Maio, Francesco Colace, and Domenico Santaniello, who explored topics such as the Appian Way as community heritage, gamification applied to cultural protection, and the automatic validation of digital views using AI.
The CROMO project represents a model of participatory innovation, in which citizens, institutions, universities, and businesses collaborate to build a distributed monitoring system for cultural heritage, making its protection and enhancement shared and sustainable assets.
Thanks to the contribution of its scientific and technological partners, including QuantumNet, the project confirms itself as a concrete example of how research, technology, and community can unite to protect and enhance the cultural memory of the territory.
