Call for applications: Goethe-Institut SA Hack Ur Culture programme

The Heritage Day virtual programme is a "cultural hackathon" that seeks to shape the future of African GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) institutions. It will bring together these institutions with creative minds and tech enthusiasts to create collaborations and innovations deriving from open cultural data.

This is an opportunity for brave young minds to lead in the development of innovative solutions that will be used by some of the continent’s most reputable GLAM institutions.

Interested creatives can apply here.

Who can participate?

This hackathon is open to enthusiastic young professionals in the creative and cultural industries across sub-Saharan Africa, such as game developers, app developers, designers, researchers, media makers, journalists and writers.

The hackathon will run for three weeks with final project submissions due on 18 October. There will be a virtual prize giving to announce the winners.

What's in it for you?

• The winning team will earn a spot to participate in the Coding Da Vinci hackathon in Germany in 2021 (April or August, depending on international travel restrictions).
• Additionally, there will be supporting awards for projects that will receive exciting cash/product prizes (to be announced in the coming weeks).
• The winning projects will be featured at the Fak’ugesi 2020 exhibition.

Goals of the hackathon

• To help make cultural heritage data open and accessible to the public.
• To deliver impactful learning and development.
• To put the question of cultural heritage data on the agenda.
• To offer a platform of experimentation and discover what is possible for the future of GLAM institutions.

Which problems will be addressed?

• Awareness: Bring new levels of awareness to GLAM institutions and their collections to engage new and younger audiences.
• Virtual experiences and virtual merchandising: Offer GLAM institutions new platforms and digital products that can transform traditional GLAM experiences into new meaningful virtual experiences.
• Archives and collections: To manage ever-increasing collections with millions of artefacts at GLAM institutions, which require digital tools that can make the managing of audits and inventory easier.
• Edutainment: With GLAM collections often being text-heavy, the programme seeks to create long oral recordings to make the learning of cultural heritage fun and engaging.
• African heritage highway: Create an open-data resource library to discover African heritage artefacts and experiences with the correct naming convention in native languages.

Background

This year, GLAM institutions have been severely hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a loss of audiences since the start of the lockdown. This extended period, without foot traffic through their doors, has forced GLAM institutions to consider what a virtual future may look like.

“As we begin taking the first steps to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all responsible for building a new normal that will shape our future,” Goethe-Institut said. “With digital experiences and a shared economy at the heart of that, how can we help make cultural heritage data more open and accessible to all of us? How can we bring African cultural heritage to the forefront of virtual experiences?”

View the original call here.