We make Berlin’s cultural diversity visible

In order to be found on the web, cultural actors have to manually enter their programs in numerous portals and online resources, a painstaking and tedious process.

At the same time, people have many options to search for cultural offerings in Berlin online, but there is no central overview of all cultural institutions and events in the city. As a result, many cultural offerings – many of which are publicly funded – are not visible to all.

With kulturdaten.berlin, we want to radically simplify the processes for both publicizing and identifying cultural offerings in the city. The Technologiestiftung Berlin is working with cultural actors and institutions to develop the first open, digital infrastructure for cultural data in Berlin: Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, we are creating a central data platform that can connect cultural data with numerous portals in a targeted manner.

Our goals:

• Less data maintenance for Berlin’s chronically resource-scarce cultural sector
• More accessible information, e.g. on accessibility or free services, to enable all Berliners to participate.
• Increased visibility of publicly funded cultural offerings
• Democratisation of competition in the cultural sector

What? When? Who? Where? For whom? In order to be found on the web, routinely endure the painstaking process of manually entering their programs in numerous online resources. This is a problem especially for smaller cultural actors, who have exciting offers but who do not have the financial or human resources to be well represented digitally. With the kulturdaten.berlin platform, we want to radically simplify this process!

That’s why we are developing the first open, digital infrastructure for cultural data in Berlin together with cultural actors, in order to connect information on cultural venues and offerings with numerous portals in a targeted manner.

And of course, not only institutions, but also groups, collectives and solo artists in particular can publish their profiles and offerings via kulturdaten.berlin.

On the one hand, the internet offers many ways to find out about Berlin’s diverse cultural scene, but on the other hand, there remains no central overview of all the city’s cultural institutions and events. With kulturdaten.berlin, we want to create the basis for making it easier to discover the diversity of Berlin’s culture - from small but inviting events held in a given neighborhood to major cultural productions. Via our data interface, event portals, for example, can obtain exactly the data they need for their particular sector focus in no time at all.

kulturdaten.berlin is based on the principles of open data and open source. That means, the source code is open and the cultural data of the platform is freely and easily accessible to all via an API, so that others can use it to build their own applications, for example. Whether it’s an app specifically for barrier-free cultural experiences or a website with concert tips specific to a given neighborhood: we’re opening up Berlin’s cultural data for anyone with fresh ideas to reuse.