Use digital food and drink ingredients and win 5000 euro

Europeana Food and Drink

What is European food and drink cultural heritage all about? When we think about food and drink, we imagine traditional regional delicacies, wines and beers, secret ingredients, intricate production methods and the climatic impact on flavours and aromas. Combined with dining etiquette, eating rituals, emblematic traditions, nostalgic locations and historically meaningful events and occasions, food and drink form the foundation of culture. From very personal experiences to community-specific habits and national traditions, food and drink simply define who we are in all sorts of ways.

For centuries, local and national museums, libraries, archives, galleries and other heritage institutions have been collecting artefacts, images, paintings, books, manuscripts, audio videos and other objects to capture the traditions and to document the development of European food and drink culture.

Europeana Food and Drink, a project promoting the wider re-use of the digital cultural resources and supporting cultural heritage organisations in development of commercial partnerships with creative industries, will demonstrate that relevant digital content available through Europeana can provide a solid basis for the development of innovative and commercially viable applications and services. Digital content such as long forgotten recipes and cookbooks, images and drawings showing traditional foods and their preparation or remarkable food locations will be provided in the course of the project by our project partners. Furthermore, images of vintage tools and artefacts from the food and drink industry as well as sound recordings with traditional songs accompanying hunting and food celebrations and many other digital items harbouring unique stories are waiting to be revealed and revived.

In order to support this creative process, Europeana Food and Drink has initiated its first Open Innovation Challenge ‘Re-using and promoting Europeana Food and Drink heritage content’. The desired solutions should help GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives and museums), tourist agencies and the food and drink industry to improve their business and support the promotion of the European food and drink cultural heritage in the modern digital age. The Open Innovation Challenge is waiting for concepts of all kinds of products and services (videos, mobile apps, games, virtual exhibitions, educational tools, etc.) that can help improve the interactivity between heritage organisations and their audiences. Applicants may use any kind of Europeana or Europeana Labs food and drink content. Thanks to Europeana API, you will gain access to more than 2,000 collections that you can incorporate into your products and applications.

The competition is open to all representatives of creative industries, start-ups, creative teams and non-profit organisations with ideas for innovative methods and solutions.

Until 20 December 2014, the interested parties may apply and submit their proposals through a specific challenge platform. More information on the Open Innovation Challenge, its requirements, guidelines and the access to the challenge platform can be found under: http://foodanddrinkeurope.eu/challengeone/