EU Heritage Hackathon
On Saturday 14th of December, 2024 Young European Federalists (JEF) Malta and Malta UNESCO Youth Association (MUYA) hosted their first Cultural Heritage Hackathon, a full day event focused on the preservation, appreciation, and exchange of EUHeritage and traditional skill.
Both organizations are huge fans of hackathons as they believe they are a great way to engage individuals to solve issues in a both fun and hands-on way. Therefore, they wanted to provide a dedicated space and time for youth to unleash their creativity and explore ways to tackle a very current issue: the growing disconnection between modern society and old traditions. Therefore, the hackathon aimed at fostering greater appreciation and awareness about heritage of the EU amongst youth as well as gave an opportunity for youth to put their skills to the test and learn new ones. The hackathon also showed that good ideas pay off by providing prizes sponsored by local businesses for the top three ideas.
The hackathon involved tasking 5 teams with creating an initiative – such as an app, a festival, an educational program, a museum, etc. – that promotes the preservation and sharing of cultural heritage and/or traditional skills. Before the actual competition portion, the teams went through various team building exercises as well as a workshop on Presentation and Heritage by Kris Polidano and a workshop on Effective Project creation by Yorath Abela.
The teams came up with amazing ideas that were loved by judges Kris Polidano, Charlene Cachia, Andrea Trovarelli and Joan Abela.
