Coding da Vinci – How Cultural Institutions become Platforms for Cultural Exchange

Six further Coding da Vinci Hackathons have since taken place in various regions of Germany – a total of 146 cultural institutions have made their hidden treasures available to more than 1,600 creative people via 218 digital data sets. More than a hundred great prototypes and web applications, apps and games have emerged as open source projects.

Coding da Vinci makes the creative potential of digital cultural assets visible and helps to unfold it. This experience is particularly important for the participating cultural institutions – they learn about the opportunities offered by the digital opening of their collections. The innovative applications not only increase the attractiveness of cultural assets and the visibility of cultural institutions. Open cultural data also invite new target groups in to deal creatively with cultural heritage and to generate new knowledge. From places of preservation, conservation and storage, museums are now turning into platforms for cultural exchange – on-site and online.

The German Federal Cultural Foundation also sees the positive effects of Coding da Vinci for the digital transformation of cultural and memory institutions: It has decided to support the further development of the hackathon in the next few years with 1.2 million euros.