Northern arts and heritage institutions will for the first time make their digital archives accessible to a group of 50 computer hackers as part of Culture Hack North: Leeds 2011.
 
The 24 hour non-stop event, which is taking place as part of Leeds Digital Festival and sponsored by Marketing Leeds, is the first of its kind in the North of England. Opera North is leading on the event which takes place over the weekend of 12 and 13 November, confirming Leeds as a vibrant hub of innovation and creativity in the digital industries. The developers taking part will compete in teams, working to create potential digital projects from the vast archives of cultural data available.
 
Organisations opening up their ‘hidden’ data to developers include Opera North, Breeze Leeds, Cornerhouse Manchester, Culture Grid, Leeds Libraries, Leeds Museums, Museums Sheffield, Manchester Museums, National Media Museum, National Railway Museum, Northern Ballet, Pilot Theatre, Sheffield Theatres, and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
 
Culture Hack North: Leeds 2011 will run from 9am on Saturday 12 November until 5pm on Sunday 13 November. After introductions, the developers will form into teams and have an intensive, non-stop period of 24 hours to complete their ‘hacks’ – creative and innovative projects based on the wide range of interesting data available. Previous Culture Hack events, which have taken place in London and Edinburgh, have lead to the creation and adoption of tangible products, such as a mobile website for the Edinburgh Book Festival.    
 
Ashley Mann, Digital Communications Manager at Opera North, comments: “Culture Hack North: Leeds 2011 marks a significant step forward in creating exciting and invaluable opportunities for some of the country’s leading cultural organisations to work with developers, and the creative industries to explore bold new ideas and new ways of channelling innovation in digital technologies. In bringing these two sectors together for an intensive weekend of development and discussion, we hope to inspire new ideas, enable new relationships to form and for lots of weird, wonderful and unpredictable things to be created.
 
Jean Dent, Non Executive Director at Marketing Leeds comments: “We are delighted to sponsor this event as part of the Leeds Digital Festival which showcases Leeds as a leading digital centre. Leeds is the ideal location for this event; it is centrally located in the north of England, home to a number of significant arts organisations and has a vibrant and growing digital community. We are also lucky to be home to fantastic organisations such as NTI Leeds (Northern Technology Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University) who can provide not only a venue but technology, training, support and additional ideas for the event.”

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