Culture is future » Innovation and digital

CULTURAL START-UP OF THE WEEK: OhAhCheck!

This week, The Forum d’Avignon goes on its e-serial on cultural entrepreneurship, and introduces OhAhCheck! a mobile application dedicated to discovering and promoting heritage in a new way.

What is your project/idea/start-up?

OhAhCheck! is an app dedicated to heritage lovers, both general public and those involved in heritage preservation. It allows its users to recognise monuments, landscapes, sculptures…, to obtain information and to share their love! It also gives the ability to manage communities linked to one or several heritages topics, located in various areas, thanks to a back office that only heritage managers can access. Moreover, every general public user can act as a donator during crowdfunding campaigns, ask for a guide, etc.

What is your current challenge?

The project is held by a public-private partnership involving GMT Editions, a multimedia app’s maker company, and ANVPAH, the biggest Heritage and History Cities association in France. A proof of concept has already been shown in September 2015, thanks to 250 K€, raised from the two main partners and the Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine. The app is currently available on iTunes and Google Play, in its 1.0 version. And the back office is used by more than 60 local authorities. Without any communication budget engaged yet, OhAhCheck is already covering more than 1500 heritage sites, mainly in France, created, checked and loved by a growing community of several thousand users. Our aim is to raise 1,3 M€ to accelerate our development at an international level.

For you, what does it mean to be a cultural entrepreneur?

OhAhCheck! is focused on a key leitmotiv: we can really change the way heritage is highlighted. With our partners, we identify three stakes:

• Highlighting heritage (talking about it, saving it…) is a huge issue: everybody in the world loves heritage (not only its own!) and is ready to protect it;
• This very active community (UNESCO, National Trust, Foundations, local associations...) is about to enter the digital era and has no convenient tools;
• Doing something for a heritage site is a cultural and a societal issue. 

In that way, it may be said that being a cultural entrepreneur is, above every over goals, to serve a universal cause.

Photo Credit © OhAhCheck

Follow OhAhCheck on… Website, twitter, Facebook,

The web series : we’re interviewing cultural start-ups – Contact us!

As part of its web series on cultural entrepreneurship, the Forum d’Avignon is proud to present each week exciting stories on cultural start-ups.

This project is part of the Forum d’Avignon’s on-going work, in line with its 2015 agenda, on the ‘hybridization of economic models in cultural and on the manifesto on cultural entrepreneurship in creative industries (to be published soon).

To participate and promote your cultural start-up on the Forum d’Avignon’s website: please send to the address forum-avignon.org@orange.fr:

• A photo (website/founders/logo) in HD
• A video link presenting your project
• A short answer (2-3 lines, in English and French) to the following three questions:

                        - What is your project/idea/start-up?

                        - What is your current challenge?

                        - For you, what does it mean to be a cultural entrepreneur