Bando Ecomic Lotto 3 — MiC PNRR (DPaaS / DPass)
Technical-functional lead on ArtCertify + blockchain Data Products (RTI Activa Digital + Civita Mostre) · 2025 – Jun 2026
Clients: MiC – Digital Library / ICDP, Invitalia, PNRR / NextGenerationEU
Problem
The Italian Ministry of Culture (Digital Library / ICDP) issued the Ecomic Lotto 3 'Advanced Fruition' tender (Dialogo Competitivo, D.Lgs. 36/2023, NextGenerationEU/PNRR funding) to build a national cultural-heritage digital ecosystem. The bid requires blockchain Data Products integrated into DPaaS (the MiC's private OpenShift cloud), semantic ontologies compliant with ArCo / REICAT / Dublin Core, non-transferable soulbound certifications, SPID / IAM ECOMIC government identity and an application platform ready to power 6 pilot use cases across national cultural institutions.
Architecture
Three logical layers (per ALLEGATO 1.1 Parte II + Relazione Unica). Layer 1 — DP-Lab / DPaaS: 4 stateless lambda-style blockchain Data Products on the MiC private cloud (OpenShift + Dataiku + Dify + S3 storage) — DP1 Metadata Catalog (Elasticsearch OSS + Postgres + Protegé/Pellet, REICAT/Dublin Core/ArCo), DP2 Auto-linking Metadata & Entities (Dify + LLaMA, multimodal NER + abstract + entity extraction), DP3 Asset+metadata certification via Blockchain+IPFS (chain-agnostic: Algorand-first with EVM fork on Base), DP4 Entity Linking via Linked Data (Neo4j + GraphDB, CIDOC-CRM/ArCo profile). Layer 2 — Containerised backend microservices (Docker/K8s), API-first OpenAPI/Swagger, IAM ECOMIC + JWT + RBAC + TLS 1.3. Layer 3 — Application frontend: 3 RTI platforms (ArtCertify for SBT certification, Atlante Digitale for mobile-first fruition, ARMedia for XR/AR/VR) consumed by 6 pilot use cases (Masterpiece Box / Bronzi di Riace, Regina Viarum / Appia Antica, Risorse Culturali di Comunità / Oliveto Citra, Double Reality / Brescia, Villa dei Papiri / MANN, BasiliCULT / Potenza). Hybrid storage: MINIO/S3 for files (centralised, GDPR-bound), IPFS Pinata for JSON metadata (decentralised, immutable per CID, ARC-19 compatible). CI/CD: ArgoCD + GitLab. Internal codename: Terranova. Coordinated within the RTI Activa Digital S.c.a.r.l. + Civita Mostre consortium with partners ARMedia, GS&H/GSnet, Orfeo, Remidia, Cultural AI partner.
Decisions
4 stateless Data Products, not a monolith
Picked 4 stateless lambda-style Data Products (input → JSON output on S3 / I.PaC) over a monolithic platform to align with DPaaS scoring criteria and PNRR delivery constraints. Each DP is independently versionable and replaceable.
Algorand-first with Base EVM fork (chain-agnostic)
DP3 designed chain-agnostic. ASA gives token semantics without smart-contract risk, Algorand fees are predictable and energy-friendly (DNSH compliant per Allegato 1.5); Base/EVM kept as fork (`ArtCertify_EVM`) for institutional flexibility.
SBT (soulbound) over transferable NFTs
Cultural-heritage certifications must be non-transferable proofs. ARC-19 (mutable IPFS template URL) + ARC-3 (metadata) on Algorand; ERC-721 + ERC-5192 (Minimal Soulbound) with `_update` override on Base via custom `ArtCertifySBT.sol` contract.
Hybrid MINIO + IPFS storage
MINIO for raw files (centralised, S3-compatible, GDPR-bounded), IPFS Pinata for JSON metadata only (decentralised, immutable per CID, ARC-19 compatible). Balances compliance with immutability.
ArtCertify decoupled from Data Products
Ship ArtCertify standalone first, so cultural institutions can use it without depending on DP-Lab availability, then bind DPs incrementally in later releases. Mitigates PNRR delivery risk.
Government identity as a prerequisite
SPID + IAM ECOMIC + JWT + RBAC + TLS 1.3 from day one: every Data Product and every application hooks into national identity, avoiding technical bypasses unacceptable for the public sector.