[CPProt.net] The relic hunters: Vancouver software firm aids Iraq in recovering looted treasure

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

The relic hunters: Vancouver software firm aids Iraq in recovering looted
treasure
Michael Kane 
Vancouver Sun 
July 20, 2005

 
CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun 
Christopher Burcsik, CEO of Minisis, is seated to the left of Oskar the
black Lab, Minisis' "director of security". 
 
Technology from Vancouver is being applied to repatriate priceless pieces of
ancient history looted from Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's
regime.

Software developer Minisis Inc. is working with the Iraqi National Museum to
make a computerized inventory of some 20,000 missing artifacts, some more
than 5,000 years old, as well as millions more that are vulnerable to
insurgent attacks at archeological sites or in poorly guarded vaults.

Agents with the international police agency, Interpol, will then be better
equipped to identify missing antiquities and restore them to the Iraqi
people.

Eventually, the electronic ledger will be posted on a website, where
curators and collectors can check to see if they are being offered looted
goods. The site will also be open to members of the public who want to learn
more about ancient Babylon and Mesopotamia, and a region often described as
the cradle of civilization.

Some of the most compelling images during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
arose from the plunder of treasures from the museum in Baghdad. Mobs and
well-organized thieves made off with irreplaceable statues, golden bowls,
jewelry, and ancient clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform, the oldest known
form of writing.

"The Iraqis know what they have lost, but they don't have a lot of
documentation on it," said Christopher Burcsik, CEO of Minisis. "Our
technology will allow them to fully document their pieces electronically,
making it harder for stolen objects to be sold and reducing the likelihood
that more treasures will go missing."

Burcsik, 37, leads a team of about 30 employees in Vancouver and Tunisia who
will train Iraqi museum staff in the use of proprietary Minisis M3 museum
collections database technology, which was designed and produced in the
firm's Terminal Avenue offices. M3 operates in both Arabic and English.

The Iraqis will be coached in Amman, Jordan, and then return to Iraq to copy
and expand upon data from handwritten museum ledgers or the artifacts
themselves.

"I find it amazing that these people go to work every day, dodging bombs, to
try to preserve what they have," Burcsik said. "The museum means much more
to them than a museum typically means to most of us. It represents their
history, education, identity and religion, which are all intertwined."

The project is an initiative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization, funded by a contribution from the Swiss
government.

Minisis is privately owned by Burcsik and Richard Lee, the 53-year-old
creator of the M3 technology, which is used in 60 countries around the
world. Burcsik said the company discounted its software for the Iraq project
by about 65 per cent.

"I think this is one of those projects where it is not the money that
matters," Burcsik said. "We will cover our costs, but our reward came when
the assistant director of the museum pulled me aside and said, 'I hope you
realize you are making a dream come true for us. You are helping us go from
nothing to being up there with all the national museums in the world.' "

The discount was in line with a "social entrepreneurship" ethos that sees
the company forgo about half of its revenues each year in reduced-priced and
free software to the developing world.

Minisis was created by Canada's International Development Research Centre in
Ottawa in the early 1970s and moved to Vancouver in 2000, when it was
privatized. The company gets its name from the advent of the mini-computer
and Isis, the name of the first database-management system that ran on a big
IBM mainframe computer.

Since the company has a large Middle Eastern client base, Burcsik said it
doesn't hurt that Min is also the king of the Egyptian gods and Isis the
queen.

mkane at png.canwest.com