Our founder, Dr Thomas Aigner, is one of the digital pioneers in the European archival world. He started his initiatives at the end of the 1990s from his institution, the Diocesan Archives of St. Pölten in Austria, and developed large digital platforms for archival documents as well as large international networks such as ICARUS – International Centre for Archival Research and Time Machine Organisation. He has also founded a non-profit company dealing with the architectural and historical heritage of a region in Lower Austria called „Mariazell im Wienerwald“. He is therefore well acquainted with both theoretical and practical expertise in the field of cultural heritage.
Some flagship initiatives
Time Machine Organisation
The international alliance for cooperation between science, technology and industry in the digital transformation of cultural heritage was founded in 2019, and Dr Thomas Aigner was one of its distinctive founding fathers. With more than 700 member institutions it is one of the largest networks of its kind worldwide.
ICARUS – International Centre for Archival Research
Born out of the Monasterium project, a nucleus of 60 institutions with its founding president Dr. Thomas Aigner started in 2008 to promote international cooperation between archives in Europe and abroad. The ICARUS family has continued to grow and now includes around 200 institutions from all over the world.
Matricula – www.matricula-online.eu
Invented and founded in 2009 as an open and freely accessible platform for birth, marriage and death records in Lower Austria, it has grown into one of the largest non-profit resources of its kind, with more than 60 million images from several European countries.
Monasterium – www.monasterium.net
Founded in 2002 as a platform for Lower Austrian parchments from the Middle Ages, it has grown to become the world’s largest resource for medieval charters, currently offering around 800,000 documents from all over the world.