Become the next Morpheus Cup Champion! Submit your project using Europeana Collections

We’re excited to announce that, for this year’s edition of the Morpheus Cup, Europeana has introduced a new category for the competition: ‘Smart Culture’. We’d like students from universities across Europe to submit innovative projects devoted to the re-use of digital culture content.

To have a chance of being our very first Morpheus Cup ‘Smart Culture’ winner, all you need to do is develop a creative proposal making use of the cultural objects you find in Europeana Collections and submit it before 29 April. Registration is free.

Participants during the Morpheus Cup 2015.

The Morpheus Cup

So what’s the Morpheus Cup? The competition, dedicated to European universities and graduate schools, aims to bring together students for an innovation lab focused on projects and challenges relating to the digital world.

During the event, happening on 10 May at the European Convention Center Luxembourg (ECCL) a winning project with a strong entrepreneurial idea, has the chance to present to a panel of industry experts and potential investors. It’s a great opportunity for undergraduates to meet potential employers, and network with a community of entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors. And on top of that, a total of 50,000 EUR in prizes will be awarded to the winners!

Europeana and “Smart Culture”

The competition has 19 different categories, each with different sector themes, and an overall top award for which only the category champions will compete. The contestants must develop projects that aim to solve current issues linked to the industries of their choice. In the case of the Smart Culture category specifically, Europeana is on the look-out for projects that showcase innovative re-use of Europeana Collections, helping to strengthen the digital cultural heritage sector with imaginative and entrepreneurial solutions.

We’re looking for a champion in this category with the most groundbreaking re-use of the cultural content Europeana Collections opens up access to. The category winner will then become a finalist for the Morpheus Cup 2016! Do you think you have an original pitch you can impress us with? If you’re a university student, then we’d love to hear from you!

Another official photo of the Morpheus Cup 2015.

How do I submit a proposal?

In order to take part of the “Smart Culture” challenge, your proposal must follow certain requirements. Firstly, you should be aware of what we are looking for. Your idea must use openly licensed content from Europeana, be technically feasible, and have a clearly defined target customer group (s) and value proposition.

Also, be sure to demonstrate clear social and/or economic impact with your idea by meeting at least one of these criteria:

• Offer novel ways of experiencing and/or interacting with digital culture;
• Support life-long learning, for instance, have a strong educational element;
• And allow commercial re-use of cultural data.

There are plenty of cultural items on Europeana Collections to take inspiration from. We have thematic collections on music, art history and about the First World War, for instance. Explore Europeana Collections by typing keywords and using search filters to find books, newspapers, artworks, maps, drawings, radio broadcasts and curated exhibitions.

For a look at our openly licensed datasets, access Europeana Labs. Furthermore, you can use Europeana Labs to find our APIs to easily search and retrieve Europeana data. Go to the API Google group to know more and to provide us with your feedback.

We accept projects at various stages of maturity (concept, prototype, early stage product), of various types (apps, games, online services, artistic and product designs) and that can be used in various sectors. A few examples of the kinds of things that you could build, according to the Morpheus Cup, include an idea dedicated to the visually impaired or to life-long learning (i.e. social solutions); or proposals for sector-specific applications (design, fashion, tourism, etc.).

And finally, your application needs to be formatted in specific standards. You must register a short project presentation that explains how you followed the category requirements. Make sure it contains your project name, lead name and email address as well. The submission should present up to five supporting visuals (screenshots, images, videos, URLs) and can be displayed in one of these formats:

• Up to a ten slides presentation;
• A PDF file of maximum pages;
• And a video (as a link, no longer than 3 minutes).

If you are an undergraduate with an interesting or inspirational idea involving Europeana Collections items, then get creating and register before 29 April!