the PROBLEM day
the PROBLEM day
we believe one thing at kickstart. young people should spend their time solving hard problems
today more than ever, we see masses get drowned in building in spaces that recreate much less marginal value than they could with the measure of talent of the person at their laptop/desk/lab
we want to see that change
so this hackathon is not for people seeking to build another throwaway mvp or to token max. this is for builders eager to find problems the world needs solving most and subsequently dedicate their time to.
here’s what the day will look like
10:45 to 11:00 | arrivals and check in
sign in, find your team, meet the other builders in the room and get settled. teams will already be formed in advance, so this is really about getting everyone in, finding your station and having a bit of time to speak to the people around you before the day properly starts.
11:00 to 11:30 | the brief
we’ll set out the challenge for the day, explain what we are actually looking for and give everyone a clear framework for thinking about whether a problem is genuinely worth solving. there’ll be early snacks, time to find your station and a chance to get properly set up with your team before the work begins.
11:30 to 13:00 | initial discovery
this is where the work starts. with your team, you’ll go deep on your problem space, research what already exists, understand who actually experiences the problem, look at what has been tried before and start gathering evidence for why the problem matters. the objective here isn’t to race towards a solution or throw together an MVP. it’s to understand the problem well enough to decide whether it deserves your time in the first place.
13:00 to 14:00 | the PROBLEM exchange
teams will rotate around the room and put their thinking in front of other builders. you’ll share the problem you’ve uncovered, the evidence behind it, what you think makes it interesting, what you’ve learned so far and where your thinking is still weak. other teams will then challenge what you’ve found, ask questions and introduce perspectives you may not have considered. the point is to leave the session with a much stronger understanding of whether your problem actually survives scrutiny.
14:00 to 14:30 | lunch and reset
we’ll take a short break for food, snacks and conversation before the final stretch of the day. it’s also a chance to speak to other builders, mentors and people in the room informally before going back into your team and deciding what needs to be tested next.
14:30 to 16:45 | final investigation and build
this is the main stretch where you take everything you learned during initial discovery and the Problem Exchange and go much deeper. you’ll continue researching the problem, validating assumptions, speaking to people where possible and building anything that helps you prove or disprove what you currently believe. that could be a small prototype, a scraper, a data cut, an agent or simply better evidence. the important thing is that you are developing a defensible understanding of why the problem matters, who it affects, how painful it really is, why it hasn’t already been solved and what the downstream consequences could be if somebody solved it properly. throughout this part of the day, people from industry and mentors will be moving around the room, challenging your assumptions, sharing context and helping you work through the problem from different angles.
16:45 to 17:00 | pitch prep
you’ll then have a short period to turn everything you’ve learned into a clear argument. the goal is not to produce the prettiest deck or the most polished MVP. it is to explain the problem clearly, show that you have genuinely investigated it and make the case for why it is worth somebody dedicating serious time and talent to solving.
17:00 to 18:30 | final presentations
each team will present what they discovered over the course of the day. that means explaining the problem, the people affected by it, the evidence you found, what already exists, what you learned from trying to challenge your own assumptions and why you still believe the problem is worth solving. we want to understand not just what the problem is, but why it matters, what could change if it were solved and why this might be a space worth committing yourself to.
18:30 to 19:00 | dinner and close
we’ll finish with dinner, the prize announcement and time to speak properly with the people you’ve spent the day alongside. it’s a chance to continue the conversations, meet other builders and hopefully leave with a problem, a team or an idea that you want to keep pursuing after Problem Day ends.
the day will also include:
£5k for the sharpest and most clearly articulated problem
guaranteed kickstart interview for top 5
perfect ted matcha!
great vibes
and more to come
Together with Ukrainian AI entrepreneur and investor Volodymyr Lytvyn, founder of the Lytvyn.AI.Foundation, we’re bringing this approach to London.
The foundation is building an open, competitive platform in Europe for engineers, technical founders and AI teams, with promising projects considered for investment and long-term collaboration. Lytvyn also joined the Startup Pitch jury at the AI Summit Barcelona 2026.
tell a friend. let's find real ways to make the most of our time and talent