GLAMhack 2026

The Swiss OpenGLAM working group unites cultural institutions, software developers, digital humanists, artists, Wikipedians, and other enthusiasts with a shared goal of advancing openness among galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM).

Within the collaborative environment of the GLAMhack, we engage in joint experimentation, innovation, and artistic creation, exploring the realms of cultural content and digital tools. Our focus spans research initiatives, web and mobile applications, Wikipedia, artistic creations, and a variety of other use cases aimed at fostering openness and creativity.

The 11th edition of our yearly Swiss Open Cultural Data Hackathon (or GLAMhack for short) will be hosted by the Stiftung für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte (SKKG) in Winterthur.

This year’s theme is “Hack the Gap – Bridging Analog and Digital Worlds“

The connection between physical spaces and objects and digital spheres has grown increasingly relevant as digital technologies evolve and offer new opportunities to represent, contextualize, and make accessible our shared cultural assets.

Yet a persistent gap remains between analog collections and the digital tools, skills, and infrastructures needed to unlock their full potential. At the same time, digital content is often detached from its physical context, creating a reverse gap in which digital representations lose their tangible connection to place, materiality, and experience.

GLAMhack26 invites participants to explore both directions of this divide and experiment with creative ways to bridge it—through new forms of digitization and description, immersive and interactive experiences, or by translating digital knowledge back into physical and spatial forms.

Ultimately, the theme encourages rethinking how cultural heritage can move fluidly between the physical and digital realms, ensuring broader access, deeper understanding, and more inclusive participation.

Update 1.9.2026: GLAMhack 2026 is fully booked (120 participants), but you can still register for the waiting list. We will let you know if a place becomes available:

Add me to the waiting list!

It is still possible to register for the Opening Night only, taking place on Thursday, 12 November from 18:00, or the Final Presentations on Saturday, 14 November at 16:00:

Register for the Opening Night or Final Presentations

GLAMhack 2026 info sessions

Are you new to the hackathon format and are wondering what your and/or your organization’s role in such an event could be? Would you like to understand better what this hackathon is all about and why participating makes sense? We’ve got you covered! We are organizing info sessions in which we will share general information about the GLAMhack and give very practical insights on what it means to get involved and which benefits you get from participating. The sessions are open for anyone interested – sign up now:

Thursday, 21 May 2026, 12:30-13:30: Slides

Tuesday, 15 September 2026, 17:00-18:00: Slides

Tuesday 22 September 2026, 15:00-17:00 at the University of Zurich Library, Rämistrasse 69, 8001 Zürich. Detailed information.

You can also have a look at the Hackathon handbook and check the results from the 10 previous GLAMhack.

Workshops + Opening Night on Thursday, 12 November

Skill-building workshops (Thursday afternoon)

Want to add a few new tools to your toolbox in advance of the hackathon? We’ve got you covered!

Topics covered in the Thursday, 12 November afternoon pre-event workshops include:

• Datasheets for cultural heritage datasets
• Apertus and Public AI Switzerland
• Coding with AI for Non-Developers
• Uploading Image Collections to Wikimedia Commons with OpenRefine

Opening Night (Thursday evening)

This evening looks at how the analogue and digital worlds can inspire and challenge each other. Through a keynote and a panel discussion, speakers will explore creativity, digital archives, and the choices that shape what we see and discover online. The programme will end with an introduction to the Demoscene, a vibrant form of digital art that brings together coding, animation, music, and cultural heritage. Our Opening Evening will also be a convivial and inspiring opportunity to meet, connect, and gather ideas for a great hackathon ahead!

Detailed Program Thursday 12 November

Hackathon program (Friday & Saturday, 13-14 November)

Friday, 13 November

The GLAMhack will kick off with an opening session followed by the challenge pitches on Friday morning. Afterwards, the participants will form groups and start hacking. Lunch and dinner as well as snacks in between will be provided at the hackathon location.

Saturday, 14 November

Participants will continue hacking and towards lunch start preparing their final presentations. The hackathon will end with the presentation of the final results of each group on Saturday afternoon followed by an apéro. All supporters and sponsors are warmly invited to join the final presentations as well as the apéro.

Detailed Program Friday-Saturday 13-14 November

Open Cultural Data

At the heart of GLAMhack26 is the SKKG Sammlung Digital. Soon, more than 60,000 objects—complete with metadata and images—will be released under an open license, enabling broad and creative reuse. The dataset will be accessible through a SPARQL endpoint, following the Linked Art data model.

Participants are also encouraged to bring and work with their own datasets, or explore our curated list of open datasets from Swiss GLAM Institutions for additional inspiration.

Want to provide cultural data from your own institution? Check out our Call to data providers (German / French) and our detailed Instructions (German / French).

Our GLAMhack26 Challenges

Propose your challenge ideas in advance of the GLAMhack on our hackathon platform, which will be used extensively throughout the hackathon. Check our guide on how to submit a challenge or the extensive user handbook of our hackathon platform (called dribdat).

Submit a challenge

Contact

If you have any questions, feel free to contact lionel.walter@opendata.ch.

Organisation team

• Sandra Becker (Wikimedia CH), Programme
• Cathlene Bell (opendata.ch), Communication
• Pierre-Louis Blanchard (Swiss National Museum), Datasets
• Sonja Gasser (SKKG), Programme
• Jonas Lendenmann (OpenGLAM Working Group), Datasets
• Oleg Lavrovsky (opendata.ch), Technical Support
• Laura Walde (SKKG), Project Lead Host Institution
• Lionel Walter (opendata.ch), GLAMhack26 Project Lead + Datasets
• Birk Weiberg (DIZH), Programme

Former team members

Anna Sigrist (opendata.ch), GLAMhack26 Project Lead (until 31 May 2026)
Zoé Langmeier (opendata.ch), Administrative Support (until 30 September 2026)

Partners

Foundations