AI4Culture Hackathon

From 12 - 20 February 2025, the AI4Culture Hackathon will see professionals, institutions and passionate individuals from the fields of AI, digital humanities and cultural heritage teaming up to transform how we preserve, enrich and interact with our shared cultural heritage.

Held in the KU Leuven campus in Leuven, the hackathon is designed to guide selected participants to learn more about the AI tools available on the AI4Culture platform, trying them first-hand using unique cultural heritage datasets. Europeana.eu, the treasure trove of European digital cultural heritage hosting over 50 million digital items, will be the primary repository for datasets. On the opening day (12 February), participants will be introduced to Europeana.eu, explore curated collections, and get full access to their vast data via the Europeana API. This session will feature inspiring challenges designed to ignite innovative AI applications.

Participants will have the opportunity to explore five AI tools developed as part of the AI4Culture project. These include features such as AI-powered solutions for automatically generating multilingual subtitles for audiovisual content, applying OCR, transcription, and automated data enrichment techniques to enhance the quality and accessibility of digital collections and detect objects and other features in photos and videos.

The AI4Culture Hackathon is all about bold ideas and creative problem-solving. Whether passionate about cultural heritage or eager to push AI's potential in new fields, this event offers endless opportunities to experiment and be part of a thriving community, to guide the cultural heritage field into its future.

Schedule

• 12 February 2025, 10:00 -18:00 CET, Irish College, Leuven - Hackathon Opening Day: Introduction to tools, data, and participants.
• 13 – 17 February 2025 - Online/Onsite. Independent team work.
  
• 18 – 20 February 2025 - Collaborative Work on Campus (Optional). Collaborative space available at KU Leuven, Campus Arenberg.
• 20 February 2025, 15:00 -19:00, KU Leuven, Campus Arenberg, Heverlee - Hackathon Closing Day: Team presentations, awards ceremony, and reception.

Application process

The initiative seeks individuals with diverse backgrounds and complementary skills, whether technical, creative, or interpersonal. While prior hackathon experience is advantageous, motivation is the primary consideration. To enter the selection process to join this event, complete the application form.

Teams will be assembled based on the skills and preferences participants indicated in their application form. Participants wishing to join as a pre-formed team should indicate this on the form too. The teams will be guided by one or more team leaders and will also be able to rely on the help of experts who have specific technical knowledge and skills. The teams are free to set their own schedules to work as best fit their availability during the 10 days of the hackathon, and are free to follow their creative inspiration, but have to apply one or more tools registered on the AI4Culture platform to one of the available datasets to produce an end result that will be presented in the form of a short presentation at the closing event of the hackathon.

Participants will be individually notified, and updates about the hackathon will be shared on LinkedIn, X, and our project page.

Important information

Selected participants are required to attend both the opening and closing days in person in Leuven. While travel and accommodation expenses are not covered, coffee and lunch on the opening day, and a closing reception on 20 February will be provided.

During the closing day, teams will present their projects to a jury, which will evaluate the submissions. The top three teams will be awarded a year-long subscription to Brilliant to support continued learning. The winning team will also receive travel reimbursement and the opportunity to present their project at the AI4Culture final conference, hosted by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on March 10, 2025.

For more information, please consult the website.