Encode London Hackathon
We’re excited to return to London for another year of hands-on creation, learning, and community building. Encode London 2026 brings together developers, founders, researchers, students, and innovators for a dual-track experience: a high-energy hackathon!
This year’s event continues our mission of fostering world-class builders while creating a space to explore new technologies, collaborate with peers, and bring ambitious ideas to life.
🛠️ Hackathon Overview
A full 3 days of non-stop hacking, where teams will build projects aligned with emerging AI and Web3 themes. Participants can expect challenges, bounties, mentorship, and the chance to showcase their work to a panel of judges.
This year there are two open challenges, plus partner bounties from Saint, MongoDB and Google DeepMind (below). More prizes and judges will be announced soon.
🎯 Challenges
The Real World: AI that understands the world around us
Build software that makes sense of the physical world from photos, audio, maps and open data.
Agents That Ship
Build an AI agent that does a real job end to end, not just a chatbot.
😇 Saint: Best Use of Saint
Put Saint, a personal AI assistant, to work on something real over the weekend. Prize: £200 cash, a Saint for each team member and 3 months of Saint free.
🍃 MongoDB: Build Anything, Change Everything with MongoDB Atlas
Build an app that solves a real-world problem with MongoDB Atlas as its core data store. Collect your $100 Atlas credit at the MongoDB booth.
✨ Google DeepMind: Build with Gemini 4 Argon
Build a working app or autonomous agent with Gemini 4 Argon that solves a problem for a real person. Prize: $15,000 in Gemini API credits.
📋 Full briefs, prizes, judging criteria and submission details are on the Encode London platform page.
🗓 Event Timeline
All times are London time. Timings are provisional and will be finalised before the event.
Friday 23 October
2:00pm Welcome & opening ceremony
2:30pm Google DeepMind workshop: Build with Gemini
3:00pm Arc workshop with Blessing Adesiji (Circle)
3:30pm MongoDB workshop - Stop Stitching, Start Building: Ship AI Apps Faster with MongoDB Atlas
4:00pm Saint workshop with Anthony Beaumont
Saturday 24 October
Build, learn & collaborate, with mentoring through the day
Talks and discussions (provisional)
Project development
Sunday 25 October
Final build & submissions
Demos & judging
Awards & closing (event ends 4:30pm)
🏆 Partners & Prizes
Venue: The Encode Hub
The event will once again take place at the Encode Hub—our community space for AI and Web3 builders in the heart of Shoreditch.
🤝 Partnership & Sponsorship
Interested in sponsoring, partnering, or getting involved?
Contact katerina@encode.club for more details.