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First steps taken in Europeana Space: the opening conference


Leonardo Buzzavo (Unive), Harry Verwayen (Europeana Foundation), Prodromos Tsiavos (AVG LAW Athens), Fred Truyen (KU Leuven) and Antonella Fresa (Promoter) at the Europeana Space Opening Conference

On the 16th and 17th October 2014 the first general meeting and conference for Europeana Space took place at the Ca' Foscari University in Venice. In this project the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision oversees the organization of six themed hackathons, as well as the development of the EuropeanaTV pilot, which aims to explore re-use of archival footage in different multi-screen TV scenarios.

The EuropeanaTV pilot

On the first day of the conference the six themed pilots were given time to present their work. The EuropeanaTV pilot presented two scenarios: the broadcast scenario, which creates a SmartTV experience around the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the local scenario, which creates an interactive TV experience for the elderly reliving the past or for pupils learning about historic events. The EuropeanaTV pilot also stressed that it will take creative re-use of archival content one step further by not just creating demo apps for inspiration, but by building a user-friendly toolkit directly usable during 2-3 hackathons and challenge events for creative thinkers to experiment and tinker with.

SlideShare presentation of the pilot

The EuropeanaTV toolkit

The EuropeanaTV pilot will produce a toolkit with so called ‘modules’ of code aimed at creating a rich and innovative TV experience, which can be used by developers and creative thinkers as building blocks to create new applications. By offering a toolkit with two example prototypes the pilot aims to build a bridge between the development community and the broadcast industry. Specifically the toolkit will help to make multi-screen technology with features such as video casting and screen merging more accessible to the general public, and will be made available during the EuropeanaTV hackathon in April next year.

Pilot partners hard at work during the hackathon and incubation workshop, photo by Kelly Mostert (CC0)

Hackathons on the horizon

As part of the Sound & Vision delegation, Gregory Markus was present to provide an update on the project’s innovation activities concerning the mapping of the market potential of the pilots. Together with Christine van den Horn of Waag Society, who organizes the six themed hackathons, and Peter Tullin and Simon Cronshaw of CultureLabel, a very hands-on workshop was held complete with post-its, sharpies and worksheets to help whip concrete hackathon ideas into shape. Their effort helped ensure that pilot members got out of the twilight zone and think in specifics as much as possible: identifying participants, sponsors, stakeholders and organisers and stating what the framework is, what the goals are, what the developers have to play with and what the theme is.

Launching the incubation rocket

Ultimately, the organization of six separate hackathons for each of the pilots will result in six monetisation workshops, which will help shape the winning hackathon projects into viable and marketable products. These six winning products will then also receive incubation support from the Europeana Space consortium. The expertise and knowledge within the project will serve as a fantastic asset for the hackathon winners as they improve their product and take it to the public. There will also be four Educational Demonstrators taking place, that innovatively showcase ways that digital cultural heritage content can be used for education purposes.

Harry Verwayen presents '5 lessons from the trenches of creative re-use', photo by Valentina Bachi (CC-BY-SA)

Veni(ce), vidi, vici

The opening conference of Europeana Space also featured keynotes by Harry Verwayen of The Europeana Foundation, who presented 5 lessons learned from the trenches of creative re-use. He provided some examples of creative re-use in projects such as Europeana Create (VanGoYourself) and Apps4Europe (Europeana Beacons) and recommendations to further encourage the uptake and lower barriers for future re-use by creative industries. One of the platforms that supports this is Europeana Labs. A very insightful talk was also given by Prodromos Tsiavos on IPR issues, and Peter Tullin and Simon Cronshaw of CultureLabel provided the crowd with extremely innovative and inspiring examples of culture and new tech. The renowned REMIX Summit was also brought under the attention (organized in Dubai , New York , London and Sydney) which attracts speakers from some of the world’s leading innovators including Google, Mozilla, MoMA, Retronaut and many many more.

View from the Ca Foscari University conference room, photo by Johan Oomen (CC0)

The opening conference furthermore gave Sound & Vision a chance to connect with European partners and show that we’ve got you covered - from pilot phase to market launch. Stay tuned for more TV pilot and hackathon news!

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