What’s the best way to bring together independent developers and designers with cultural institutions and provide them with a platform for communication so that they can discuss ways in which digitised cultural heritage might be put to active use? Answer: ‘Coding da Vinci’, the culture hackathon.

Last year 16 cultural institutions released, under open licence, 26 sets of data that had previously been either inaccessible to the public or hard to access. At the public awards ceremony 17 projects were revealed to the institutions that had provided the data and to a gathering that included sponsors, the press and other interested organisations. The success of the event is ongoing: eight projects have been presented at conferences and trade shows; four projects have since produced fully-fledged downloadable applications and three projects are currently working with business experts to develop business models destined for submission at EU level. The base material, too, is endlessly recyclable, with all data sets and results available for use by the general public under open licence.

‘Coding da Vinci’ created a space within which technology and culture can interact with one another. Casual cross-linking of data sets increases exposure to culture, dismantles barriers and helps purvey cultural knowledge in a comprehensible manner. Collaboration between cultural institutions and programmers working with open-access data has given rise to digital applications that illuminate the creative potential of our cultural heritage.

Just how creative these digital approaches to our culture are is apparent from the award-winning results. First prize in the ‘Most Technical’ category went to an application entitled ‘Old Berlin – the history of a city’s development’, in which users compare historical images of the city with photos of modern Berlin, taking a tour of discovery through the history of the metropolis. Winner in the ‘Most Useful’ category was the ‘inside 19xx’ project, which visualises books that were banned by the ‘Reichsschriftkammer’ between 1938 and 1941. ‘zzZwitscherwecker’, a light-hearted application based on digitised material released by the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, came first in the ‘Out of Competition’ category: users can switch off an alarm clock only by correctly identifying the bird behind the birdsong.

The crowdfunding campaign

To ensure that Coding da Vinci repeats its success of last year, the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek has teamed up with Wikimedia Deutschland, the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Servicestelle Digitalisierung Berlin and launched a crowdfunding initiative. The aim is to allow culture hackers more time at the creative stage of the process by engaging developers to prepare the data beforehand …and to use crowdfunding to cover the costs of this data optimisation.

Beneficiaries of this pre-prep phase will be not only the participating culture hackers but also all other groups and individuals who have an interest in culture, since the treated data from museums, libraries and archives will then be made available under open licence to platforms such as Wikipedia. The guiding principle here is again the provision of unimpeded access, free of charge, to knowledge and culture.

With this in mind – and on behalf of its three partners - the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek is asking all interested parties to support the crowdfunding campaign. Information on the Coding da Vinci project is available on the Startnext website: https://www.startnext.com/codingdavinci

Call for Data!

Coding da Vinci brings participating cultural institutions into contact with programmers, designers and gamers, allowing them to gain a different perspective on their own digital material, to identify new target groups and interested parties and to recruit new supporters in their own efforts to preserve cultural heritage.

Upcoming dates

Briefing for interested cultural institutions: 23.2. - midday, Berlin

Please helene.hahn [at] okfn.org (tell us) if you would like to attend.

Deadline for registering to take part in Coding da Vinci: 9th March

Release of data to event organisers & data-preparation phase: 9th March – 1st April

To qualify for participation, cultural institutions must release material under open licence (e.g. Open Source or Open Definition), ideally in the form of digitised media and the associated metadata or as an open API. The project partners will advise and support participating institutions on all technical and organisational issues. helene.hahn [at] okfn.org (Contact)