Inspired by examples like DigiEduhack and the Social Hackathon Umbria, the Europeana Education Community invites you to the Europeana social and educational low-code hackathon - Low-Code Fest! 

In this annual event we invite educators and cultural heritage professionals to prototype with their students an educational and social innovative product using Europeana’s APIs. This programme and series of events aims to engage teachers, educators and their students to co-develop solutions to social challenges and/or enhance educational processes and practices. 

The Low-Code Fest will focus on using the  Europeana APIs and supporting European educators and cultural heritage professionals to identify innovative approaches for educational initiatives. This programme is open to applications from all types of  educators (whether you teach arts and humanities or STEM disciplines) because previous coding experience is not required - it is ‘Low-Code’. 

If you are an educator that wants to engage your students or peers with online data and digital cultural heritage, the Low-Code Fest will teach you how to use online tools to go beyond simply searching through a website. You'll learn the basics of what APIs are, how they can be used in educational projects, and discover innovative ways of delving into online databases to find wonderful cultural heritage objects to work with. 

If you want to have students work hands-on with online data, improve their digital literacy and understanding of how websites and databases work, this programme will hand you the tools you need to do so. After this programme you'll be able to engage students and teach them:

• how websites are built on top of databases

• what cultural heritage data and metadata is and how to use it

• how to query a database using a website as well as an API endpoint

• critical thinking on the use of keywords, queries and advanced searching

• how to develop and assess use cases for their digital projects

• how to start using APIs in their own projects using digital cultural heritage

On 30 June and 1 July the Europeana Initiative organised two hour long webinars which aim to support interested participants to use Europeana’s APIs for educational purposes.

The first webinar focused on presenting digital cultural heritage data and metadata; what an API is; and what Europeana's APIs are, to equip participants with a basic understanding of technical and digital aspects to be considered in the co-designing phase. 

The second webinar presented examples of Europeana’s APIs’ integration in different projects, with the aim to provide inspirational input to the teams. It allowed time for participants to discuss their ideas for the Low-Code Fest. 

Applications for Low-Code Fest 2023 will open on 1 July and close at 17.00 CEST on 21 July 2023. The call is open to: 

• Teachers in formal education (from primary to secondary and Vocational and Education training, VET) from European countries who have an interest in digital technologies for education and want to learn how to use low-coding apps and tools. Your project application needs to consider how to benefit a cultural heritage institution with a digital collection in your area.

• European cultural professionals working in museums, archives, libraries and any other cultural heritage institutions who currently work with schools and students, and want to design a digital educational service or product

The form to submit your project ideas will be shared with participants registered in the capacity building phase after completion of phase 1.

During the first week of September a committee of Europeana Foundation staff and Council Members will select a maximum of three teams to work on their projects and to be involved in the capacity development activities and final hackfest event. Teams will be selected according to the following criteria:

• Eligibility check: the applicant is from one of the two eligible categories and has correctly provided all the requested information in the online application form.

• Local partnership: there is an evident connection between the school and the cultural venue mentioned in the form. 

• Feasibility: the co-development project proposed by the team can effectively benefit from the integration of existing Europeana APIs.

After selection of the three best ideas and communication to the team leaders, remote support will be provided through a common online channel where participants can start to post questions and receive initial feedback from experts. The Fest will happen in the same channel. Before the hackfest, the teams will receive a list of experts who will mentor them with a 30 minutes session with up to three mentors during the hackathon.

The Europeana Low-Code Fest event will take place on 22 September. The agenda will be shared with team leaders in due time. Expert organisations EGInA and the CRHACK LAB FOLIGNO 4D will provide a team of experts who will meet the teams according to their needs to further develop their projects and pitch them during the hackfest.

After the presentation of the final projects, the jury will meet for the final evaluation and selection of the most deserving project from among those that have passed the first selection phase. They will evaluate the entries in three areas: 

1. Relevance: how much the project improves the collaboration between schools and cultural institutions. (Max. 5 points)

2. Feasibility: how easy is it to integrate the selected API(s) in the proposed project? (Max. 5 points)

3. Transferability: is it possible to integrate/adapt the solution to other projects and in other sectors? (Max. 5 points)

4. Maturity: Level of development of your proposal (Max. 5 points)

The winners will have cost travel covered up to 2,000 euros to be able to attend EuropeanaTech 2023 in October.

Depending on the final quality of the other two projects, they will also be eligible to attend Social Hackathon Umbria.  If co-funded options with an Erasmus mobility grant is possible in all cases, the three teams could finally be present at the event in 2024. 

All three teams will have the chance to have an interview published on Europeana Pro.

The Low-Code Fest 2022 took the format of a competition, with the projects evaluated by the public and an expert jury. The winners had the cost of travel covered to be able to attend Social Hackathon Umbria, an event where teams bring their projects to the next level and meet with experts and other like-minded professionals.