As dozens of coders tapped frantically at their laptops, the vibe at \u201cProject ElevenLabs\u201d \u2014\u00a0a one-day, invite-only hackathon hosted by the AI voice unicorn and accelerator Project Europe \u2014\u00a0felt more akin to a music festival than a coding marathon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has ruined all other hackathons,\u201d one attendee told me as we walked out of the event space to three servers dressed as Santa Claus, two food trucks and \u2014 as an extra surprise \u2014 a flame-throwing dancer. \u201cUsually we just get a stack of pizza boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another attendee remarked how struck she was by the organisers\u2019 attention to detail. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen makeup wipes in the toilets before.\u201d (For anyone planning a hackathon: there was also deodorant, toothbrushes, chewing gum, room spray, dry shampoo and \u2014 for the more self-care-minded hackers \u2014 gel eye masks.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a comfortable hackathon. You will be looked after,\u201d Project Europe chief Kitty Mayo promised the crowd of 130 builders, during the event\u2019s opening speeches. \u201cIt\u2019s rare you have the best of the best of all [Europe\u2019s] communities together in one room.”<\/p>\n
And it wasn\u2019t just any room, as ElevenLabs’ cofounder, and Warsaw native, Mati Staniszewski noted: the building once played host to the Central Office of Press, Publications and Entertainment Control \u2014\u00a0the former communist regime\u2019s censorship ministry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels in some way crazy that many of you will be building with ElevenLabs,\u201d Staniszewski told a rapt audience of hackers from across the region. \u201cBringing and allowing machines to speak. To speak freely, to speak beyond the boundaries and hopefully make this ministry […] go into old memories.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His point wasn\u2019t lost amidst a sea of selfie sticks, three roaming camera crews and even a makeshift podcast booth pitched in a hallway tent. The regime\u2019s censors would have had a hard time keeping up.<\/p>\n
Staniszewski’s no stranger to hackathons himself, he told the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He and cofounder Piotr Dabkowski would fly out to compete in similar contests. An audio project pursued by the pair led directly to them founding ElevenLabs \u2014 a company now worth $6.6bn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did some really bad ideas too,\u201d he told the room, to a smatter of sighs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the teams began the 20-hour coding marathon, their voice-enabled ideas ranged from the deeply practical \u2014 two separate teams worked on sleep-enhancing companions \u2014 to the gleefully imaginative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There were platforms to manage and aggregate scientific research, a video-to-voice-note tool for those with hearing impairments, an infuriating VR escape-room game and a dating app which, by the end of the coding marathon, had already orchestrated a coffee date for two users back in the UK.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the showcase, it was the dating app\u2019s demo video which earned the largest laughs, featuring footage of Mayo answering prompts to make a profile. \u201cI wanted to be an artist but Harry [Stebbings] told me I should be a venture capitalist instead,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s an interesting contrast […] how did you feel about that suggestion?\u201d came the reply. Mayo looked pretty content with her choice.<\/p>\n
Taking away the \u20ac10k cheque \u2014 which was at least 2m long \u2014 was a Warsaw team who built an immersive, hyper-personalised game. Meanwhile, teams behind an enterprise agent to automate morning stand-ups and the dating app bagged prizes of \u20ac2,500 each. A bonus prize \u2014 a car, of course \u2014 went to a group which built a platform to generate videos based on festive memories from different family members.<\/p>\n
In a fireside discussion, rounding off the event, Mayo asked Staniszewski if he had any advice for the attendees:\u201cYou can serve globally from the start. Where you are is no limitation to who you want to reach out to.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it feels like I should be getting advice from you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As dozens of coders tapped frantically at their laptops, the vibe at \u201cProject ElevenLabs\u201d \u2014\u00a0a one-day, invite-only hackathon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[95],"tags":[3157,3158,182,3159,181],"class_list":["post-2898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-warsaw","tag-elevenlabs","tag-hackathon","tag-poland","tag-pro","tag-warsaw"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}