Digitizing Intangible Cultural Heritage in China: A Pedagogical Model for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Among New Media Art Students

Applying digital technologies to preserve cultural heritage is hardly a new concept. In 1990s, with the launch of the Memory of the World project by UNESCO, scholars all over the world began to pay attention to the digital protection of cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible [1]. Through the Memory of the World research network that could be forged globally, UNESCO aims for concerted efforts in mediating, safeguarding, and even promoting cultural heritage by new means of information communicating technologies [2]. Nonetheless the efforts, although commendable, have been more focused on the digital documentation instead of promotion of cultural heritage. Concurrently, as China attaches great importance to "entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship" education, college students' innovation and entrepreneurship education has become an important field of research in China. This study defines intangible cultural heritage, explains digitization of intangible cultural heritage, points out the limitations of the efforts on digital preservation, overviews entrepreneurship education for college students in China, and proposes a pedagogical model targeted at new media art in higher education which seeks to propagate the efforts to digitally preserve and promote intangible cultural heritage under the values of innovation and entrepreneurship.