By Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland from Deutschland (Coding da Vinci - Der Kultur-Hackathon) CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsBy Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland from Deutschland (Coding da Vinci - Der Kultur-Hackathon) CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsOn July 6, the first German cultural hackathon "Coding da Vinci" ended with the presentation of the 17 applications developed during the 10-week working period. The winners were awarded their prizes in an appropriate setting at the Jewish Museum Berlin. For the first time, hackers and culture enthusiasts were able to use 20 datasets from 16 cultural institutions, e.g. bird songs, pictures from Berlin in the 18th century or sounds of musical instruments. More than 180 people attended the ceremony including the happy winners (see right). The five winning applications were: an alarm clock that wakes you with bird sounds and can only be silenced when identifying the bird, an app that matches pictures of a Berlin of the past with the present city, visualization of a list of Nazi-looted books, a hardware hack that made a beetle alive and a website where you can play musical instruments yourselves. You can find all of them on the website of the hackathon.
Wikimedia Salon "ABC of Free Knowledge"
By Agnieszka Krolik (Wikimedia Salon - Das ABC des Freien Wissens) CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This year, WMDE started a new series of events called "Das ABC des Freien Wissens". Going through the alphabet, we define terms and concepts that are both for relevant for culturally interested public and Wikimedians. Experts are invited and discuss certain topics in a moderated discussion round. Furthermore, there are art interventions related to free knowledge included in every event, like open source sound installations, that can be reused by everyone.
After talking about the concept of digital commons (german: Allmende), experts and interested attendees talked about the Bookmarket of the future. Last month, under the title Crowdrock, the music industry of the future was discussed. Theres always a strong focus on the question, if open systems and free licences can and will be inplemented in all these areas. The next salon has the title "Datenberg", hackers and big data-experts will talk about positive and potential dangerous effects of big data.
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