Digital storytelling and long-term participatory strategies for a new hackable museum-making model: the #iziTRAVELSicilia and the Ursino Castle Civic Museum case

According to scholars, the Hackable City model is replacing the Smart City one. The participatory approach in the digital revolution is a fundamental element of this new city and society model, which is much more inclusive than the previous one. This model is also perfectly applicable to the co-creative, inclusive and bottom-up participation in culture. Here, presenting the case study project #iziTRAVELSicilia, we can demonstrate how a creative and participatory involvement in co-creation of cultural digital content could have positive impacts on a museum management also in terms of costs of implementation and updating; maintenance; conservation; long-term social and economic revenues; and, finally, quantitative performances. According to the evolution from the smart city model to the kaching one, this project offers insights both to policy makers, on the possibility for defining territorial promotion strategies, and to museums’ and cultural institutions’ staffs, on the possibility of defining sustainable communication and participatory strategies about their collections, such as the case of the Ursino Castle Civic Museum in Catania, which staff since 3 years is involving many High School and University of Catania students in communicating their collection.