24h to innovate: back to back consumer AI hackathons in NYC and London

This month, we partnered with a16z to host back-to-back Consumer AI Hackathons in New York City and London. Across two continents, developers, designers, and AI enthusiasts came together to create, collaborate, and build practical apps with AI.

New York City: Innovation in 24 Hours

The NYC hackathon, hosted at our office, welcomed over 100 participants across 21 teams for 24 hours of nonstop hacking. Co-hosted with a16z and supported by Captions, Luma, OpenAI, and Cerebral Valley, the event was a celebration of creativity in consumer AI.

Winning projects stood out for their creative ideas and solid execution:

• Kaizen - @letsleverup (1st place): A fitness app that feels like a game. It uses computer vision to track movement and AI characters to keep players active in a virtual world.

• Two Somethin’ - @evan_gauer and @jordanroth_ (2nd place): An AI that takes over customer service calls for you, handling everything so you don’t have to wait on hold.

• Pokémon IRL - @therealarrays (3rd place): A game where players control Pokémon battles with voice commands instead of buttons, using AI to animate the actions in real time.

London

The London hackathon, held simultaneously at ElevenLabs HQ, gathered over 50 participants in an all-day competition. With support from Synthesia, Captions, Luma, and AI Tinkerers, teams built applications in communication, productivity, and voice interaction.

The winners in London were:

• Runewell - @Mentioum and @yeahgirlscode: An app that lets users create custom voice casts for their favorite stories, adding familiar voices to each character in the story.

• PersuAIsion - Sivesh Sukumar, Josh Warwick, and Martin Szummer: A tool to practice social skills. It simulates different conversations, letting users work on negotiation, sales, or personal interactions.

• Ryoko Travel - Ben Butterworth, Miki Suzuki, and Jim Plimmer: An app that creates short videos of travel memories. Users can add photos, talk about their experiences, and get a video they can share in multiple languages.

• 6Sense - likethemonth, MiscellaneousStuff, Michael Martin, Kesku, and David Gelberg: A digital assistant that combines live video input with voice feedback to help users understand what’s happening around them—especially useful for those with visual impairments.

Events like these remind us how much potential there is in AI of all sorts, including audio. They also show the power of bringing creative people together. We’re excited to see where these projects go from here.