CBN, Google collaborate on virtual currency museum
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is collaborating with Google to create a virtual currency museum.
The museum will exhibit the evolution of money in Nigeria.
The CBN said it had become necessary to take the currency museum to the larger world when it discovered that more than 30,000 individuals from around the world had physically visited its museum in Abuja.
The Currency Museum of the Central Bank of Nigeria was established on the 6th May 2009 with two galleries: the permanent and temporary sections.
Mr. Folashodun Adebisi Shonubi, Deputy Governor, Operations Directorate of the CBN made this disclosure in Abuja yesterday on the occasion of the 2023 international museum day (IMD) celebration.
Shonubi said, “the Central Bank of Nigeria Currency Museum is working in collaboration with Google and our in-house Information Technology Department (|TD) to establish a Virtual Reality Museum”.
This, he said, “is an approach to connect with the global world for the public to sit back and relax within their comfort zone and view the artifacts on display”.
Also speaking on the development, the Director Currency Operations of the CBN, Ahmed Bello Umar said the apex bank is “in the process of making sure that our museums have gone digital by way of Virtual Reality Museum where you sit back in your comfort zone and take a view through our Currency Museum Gallery coming soon”.
He said the International Museum Day 2023 now requires ‘all Museums, their professionals and communities to create, imagine and share new practices of (co-)creation of value, new business models for cultural institutions and innovative solutions for the social, economic and environmental challenges of the present”.
According to him, “you can’t continue doing the same thing and expect a different result”: until Museums embrace new approaches as regards to evolving technology and give up the old methods, we will never appeal to new audiences nor be intertwined with other Museums”.
“Digital innovations can make museums more accessible and engaging thereby helping audiences understand complex and nuanced concepts” he said.
Speaking to the need for virtual museums, the Director Museums, National Commission for Museums and Monument, Mr Gimba Abdul Mohammed told the gathering that, “we have virtual friends of the museum today, majority of the people that enter that virtual museum are from developed countries; you can’t find Africans”.
“They are from developed countries, they pay to see what museum is about because what we do; we take museum close to their door step or close to their bedroom”.
In her presentation, Mrs Stella Gana an Assistant Director in the Currency Operations Department of the CBN said the CBN museum has welcomed over 30,000 visitors since 2009 when it was established, and loaned out some artefacts to other countries.
