Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) Announces 2019 Fall Professional Development Grant Recipient
The Board of Directors of the Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) is pleased to present the Fall 2019 VRAF Professional Development Grant in the amount of $1000 to Malkia Okech, Augmented Reality Developer for the Penn & Slavery Project, Penn Libraries Digital Scholarship, UPENN, Philadelphia, PA.
Malkia Okech, plans on utilizing the funds to participate and develop her skills with a 4 day workshop with African Digital Heritage in Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya, Africa. She will be assisting in the planning, presenting and collaborating on a workshop, "Creating Interactive Digital Assets", which is part of a Skills4Culture series, with the goal of training museum professionals and general cultural heritage practitioners in Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya. The goal of the program is to situate digitization efforts within contemporary museum practice in Kenya, and train attendees in 3D digitization of artifacts, guiding them through a workflow that they can replicate within their respective institutions. Okech recently worked on a digital exhibition Memory Keepers. After her return from Kenya and before the exhibition closes in March, she hopes to develop a workshop, as similar to Creating Interactive Digital Assets, around digital visualization as a memory preserving method.
The VRAF Professional Development Grant Program reflects the broad mission of the VRAF to support professional development in the field of visual resources and cultural heritage information management. The grant can be used to participate in a professional development opportunity of the grantee’s choosing (such as a conference, symposium, workshop, online education), or to enroll in relevant research activities (such as hands-on field work or a site visit for scholarly purposes). For more information about the VRAF, the VRAF Professional Development Grant, and other VRAF programs, please visit vrafoundation.com
On behalf of the VRAF Board of Directors