What a joy it was to host the very first Leadenhall Live 2026 AI Hackathon and watch ideas come alive. Some of the best AI-powered concepts I've seen in a long time came out of the iconic The Leadenhall Building space we took over. Tangible value for businesses and people, built in minutes rather than months. bolt.new made "make ideas real" a literal promise, and SilkFlo meant every team could instantly see the potential value behind their idea. The hackers showed up and showed out! 60+ builders in person, another 100 joining virtually, all chasing ideas that could genuinely improve lives and spark social change. But here's what really got me, watching first-time builders and the simply AI-curious go from a scribbled note to a working prototype in minutes. No gatekeeping, no barrier to entry, just curiosity turned into creation. If that's not a glimpse of what London's ecosystem is capable of, I don't know what is. We have every ingredient here to build a genuine rival to Silicon Valley's era of innovation. Of course, no hackathon is complete without sharp minds trading insights, a huge thanks to our AI mentors and judges, Darrell Edwards, Liberatus Fusi-Akpodono and Ramsey Funwie, for a brilliant panel on the next wave of enterprise AI and how to build efficiently and sustainably with bolt.new A huge thank you to our sponsors bolt.new and SilkFlo for empowering our hackers to build with no barriers. Special thank you to Darrell Edwards for bringing this impactful event forward and Josip Bartulović wow, amazing work on photography! To everyone who showed up, built, questioned, and created, thank you. This is only the beginning. 🚀
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A job well done. Looking forward to the next one you host! 👏🏾
Thanks for being an amazing host Kelvin and constantly championing conversations around AI and innovations. I keep learning loads from you
It's quite fascinating how you manage to keep your composure during these types of events. Can't wait for next year's Leadenhall event.
Congratulations Kelvin M. !
Brilliant few days Kelvin, thank you for having us. Loved watching teams go from a scribbled note to a real, costed business case in minutes. Most AI use cases stay vague because nobody puts a number on them. Here every builder could see exactly what their idea was actually worth before they'd even finished building it! Pairing that with bolt.new, meant that the business case could go straight to prototype. Really cool! Huge credit to you and Darrell for pulling this together, and to everyone who showed up and built. Looking forward to the next one.
Welldone! Really amazing stuff!
No AI event is complete without Kelvin on the mic! The way you make it come together for both beginners and experienced ppl is SPECIAL!