europeana

Highlights from Hack4Europe! Roadshow

Four amaz­ing events in four great cities! See the high­lights from the Hack4Europe! road­show in June 2011. Enjoy the excite­ment, fun and cool apps.

Hack4Europe! Road Show, 7-11 June 2011 from europeana on Vimeo.

Hack4Europe: passion, coding and great ideas

Euro­peana hack days marked one of our impor­tant June high­lights. Together with our local part­ners Col­lec­tions Trust, Museu Picasso, Poz­nan Super­com­put­ing and Net­work­ing Cen­ter and Swedish National Her­itage Board we orga­nized 4 hackathons in Poz­nan, Barcelona, Lon­don and Stock­holm in the week 7 — 11 June.

We wel­comed 85 devel­op­ers with diverse back­ground and exper­tise from all over Europe. The major­ity of them works in the pri­vate sec­tor (ICT, cre­ative indus­tries); how­ever, cul­tural her­itage insti­tu­tions such as Bib­lio­thèque nationale de France (BNF) and open data com­mu­ni­ties such as Wikipedia were also well represented.

The devel­op­ers had access to 19 mil­lion objects in the Euro­peana col­lec­tions and, for the first time, to the 3 mil­lion records avail­able under the CC0 license com­pris­ing Euro­peana Open Data pilot. The 60+ hours of intense cod­ing and exper­i­ments resulted in 48 pro­to­types show­cas­ing mobile apps, apps with social and gam­ing com­po­nent, apps for con­tent cura­tion and visu­al­iza­tion, and inte­gra­tion with Wikipedia.

At each hackathon we granted awards in the cat­e­gories com­mer­cial poten­tial, social impact and inno­va­tion. Also, the devel­op­ers voted for their peers and decided which appli­ca­tion will be hon­ored with the spe­cial Audi­ence award. Finally, we announced four Hack4Europe final­ists rep­re­sent­ing the best pro­to­types in each category:

• App with great­est com­mer­cial poten­tial: Art4Europe (Poz­nan event)
• App with great­est social impact: Casual Cura­tor (Lon­don event)
• Most inno­v­a­tive app: Time Mash (Stock­holm event)
• Audi­ence award: Time­book (Barcelona event)

They were invited to the Dig­i­tal Agenda Assem­bly on 16 –17 June in Brus­sels and awarded spe­cial prizes by the EU Vice-President and Com­mis­sioner for Dig­i­tal Agenda for Europe Neelie Kroes.

In the next weeks we will tell you more about our win­ners at each hack event and explain how these new appli­ca­tions can be use­ful for you.

Start with a short intro­duc­tion tour into the four final­ist apps!

Hack Days in Poznan

The sec­ond city in our Hack Days blog series (and actu­ally, the first one in the hackathon road­show) is Poz­nań. The Hack4Europe! days on June 7–8 are hosted by the Poz­nan Super­com­put­ing and Net­work­ing Cen­ter and Kórnik Library of the Pol­ish Acad­emy of Sci­ences.

Poz­nań is Poland’s fifth largest city and one of the old­est.  Located on the  Warta river in West-Central Poland, it’s the his­tor­i­cal cap­i­tal of the Wielkopol­ska (“Greater Poland”) region. Today, Poz­nań is an impor­tant cen­tre of trade, indus­try, sci­ence and edu­ca­tion. Sev­eral uni­ver­si­ties are based in the city, as well as an Acad­emy of Fine Arts and an Acad­emy of Music. An excel­lent place to exchange ideas about dig­i­tal cul­tural heritage!

Click the fol­low­ing link to read more about the upcom­ing Euro­peana hack days.

Hack days in Barcelona

On May 9^th, Milena posted about Hack4Europe: our upcom­ing Hack Days in 4 Euro­pean coun­tries. One of the loca­tions  is the fab­u­lous Museu Picasso in Barcelona.

We aim to pro­vide an excit­ing loca­tion for explor­ing the poten­tial of open cul­tural data for cre­ative ser­vices. Mem­bers of Euro­pean Devel­op­ing com­mu­ni­ties are invited to join and cre­ate new (pro­to­types of) appli­ca­tions. At the moment, 30 par­tic­i­pants have already signed up and we can’t wait to meet them.

The envi­ron­ment should cer­tainly be inspiring:  Barcelona is one Europe’s  lead­ing tourist, eco­nomic and cul­tural cen­tres, and its influ­ences in com­merce, edu­ca­tion, enter­tain­ment, media, fash­ion, sci­ence and art con­tribute to its sta­tus of global city. The city is not only famous for artists like Miro, Picasso and Gaudi, but also for its soc­cer club FC Barcelona.

The Picasso Museum has one of the most exten­sive col­lec­tions of art­works by the 20^th cen­tury Span­ish artist Pablo Picasso. It is one of the most vis­ited muse­ums in Barcelona and housed in five adjoin­ing medieval palaces in Barcelona’s La Ribera.

Click the fol­low­ing link to read more about the upcom­ing Euro­peana hack days.

Hack4Europe!

What are the ben­e­fits of mak­ing cul­tural her­itage data open and reusable? How can it sup­port the devel­op­ment of new con­tent mar­kets, gen­er­ate new jobs and enrich people’s life?

Euro­peana and its part­ners Col­lec­tions Trust, Museu Picasso, Poz­nan Super­com­put­ing and Net­work­ing Cen­ter and Swedish National Her­itage Board are organ­is­ing a series of hack days for devel­op­ers across Europe in the week 6 – 12 June 2011 to explore pos­si­ble prac­ti­cal answers of these questions.

We are in the midst of the prepa­ra­tions and not ready to share all the details yet; how­ever, here some hints of what you can expect:

4 hot spots in Lon­don, Barcelona, Poz­nan and Stockholm
30 high-profile devel­op­ers from cre­ative indus­tries, open data com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tural her­itage insti­tu­tions (per event)
Cool venues with all-in facil­i­ties for work, fun and networking
Access to a diverse, rich and dynamic con­tent:
17 mil­lion items in the Euro­peana col­lec­tions, of which
3 mil­lion Euro­peana records avail­able under a CC0 license (“No Rights Reserved”) in the Euro­peana Linked Open Data Pilot datasets
Com­fort zone to try out ideas and build pro­to­types show­cas­ing the social and busi­ness value of open cul­tural data
Awards! for the best projects at each hackathon
Invi­ta­tion for the four final­ists to the spe­cial award cer­e­mony dur­ing the  Dig­i­tal Agenda Assem­bly on 16 –17 June in Brus­sels led by the Com­mis­sioner Ms. Neelie Kroes

A lot of work ahead for us but we feel excited and keep you posted about all the Hack4Europe! prep bub­bling, onsite news, and outcomes!