COJ calls on youths to team up for the Goethe Institute Hackathon
JOBURG – There will be some exciting prizes to be won by participants in teams, including a trip to Germany to participate in a coding event.
City of Johannesburg Library and Information Services invited to participate in hackathon.
The Hackathon is a youth-focused digital skills development initiative coordinated by the Goethe Institute appointed and mentored youth-owned entity, Credipple, who will be training and mentoring the youth participating in the Hackathon. The intention of ‘Hack-Ur-Culture’ is to create a virtual platform that brings together GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) institutions with creative minds and tech enthusiasts to bring about collaborations and innovations deriving from open cultural data. This is an opportunity for brave young minds to lead in the development of innovative solutions that will be used by some of the continent’s most reputable GLAM institutions, these might include websites, games or apps.
For City of Johannesburg libraries, this project presents an opportunity to identify different cultural data and information services that are available in libraries and package it for digital platforms in order to reach wider audiences in other parts of the world. It is also a continuation of an ongoing digital transformation process in libraries which includes introducing youth to various digital skills such as coding, among others.
The City’s libraries would like to encourage youth not only from the ICT field, but enthusiastic young professionals in the creative and cultural industries across sub-Saharan Africa, such as app developers, designers, researchers, media makers, journalists and writers, to form teams and register to participate.
This Hackathon will begin on 24 September and will run for a period of three weeks with final project submissions due on 18 October. There will be some exciting prizes to be won by participants in teams, including a trip to Germany to participate in a coding event.
Applications close on 10 September, here is the link, airtable.com/shrYByLOz5rwLslyx
For more details about the Hackathon, visit www.goethe.de/prj/hyc/en/saf/apply.html
