As dozens of coders tapped frantically at their laptops, the vibe at “Project ElevenLabs” — a one-day, invite-only hackathon hosted by the AI voice unicorn and accelerator Project Europe — felt more akin to a music festival than a coding marathon.
“This has ruined all other hackathons,” one attendee told me as we walked out of the event space to three servers dressed as Santa Claus, two food trucks and — as an extra surprise — a flame-throwing dancer. “Usually we just get a stack of pizza boxes.”
Another attendee remarked how struck she was by the organisers’ attention to detail. “I’ve never seen makeup wipes in the toilets before.” (For anyone planning a hackathon: there was also deodorant, toothbrushes, chewing gum, room spray, dry shampoo and — for the more self-care-minded hackers — gel eye masks.)
“This is a comfortable hackathon. You will be looked after,” Project Europe chief Kitty Mayo promised the crowd of 130 builders, during the event’s opening speeches. “It’s rare you have the best of the best of all [Europe’s] communities together in one room."
And it wasn’t just any room, as ElevenLab’s cofounder, and Warsaw native, Mati Staniszewski noted: the building once played host to the Central Office of Press, Publications and Entertainment Control — the former communist regime’s censorship ministry.
“It feels in some way crazy that many of you will be building with ElevenLabs,” Staniszewski told a rapt audience of hackers from across the region. “Bringing and allowing machines to speak. To speak freely, to speak beyond the boundaries and hopefully make this ministry [...] go into old memories.”
His point wasn’t lost amidst a sea of selfie sticks, three roaming camera crews and even a makeshift podcast booth pitched in a hallway tent. The regime’s censors would have had a hard time keeping up.
Staniszewski's no stranger to hackathons himself, he told the crowd.
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 — a company now worth $6.6bn.
“We did some really bad ideas too,” he told the room, to a smatter of sighs.
As the teams began the 20-hour coding marathon, their voice-enabled ideas ranged from the deeply practical — two separate teams worked on sleep-enhancing companions — to the gleefully imaginative.
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.
During the showcase, it was the dating app’s demo video which earned the largest laughs, featuring footage of Mayo answering prompts to make a profile. “I wanted to be an artist but Harry [Stebbings] told me I should be a venture capitalist instead,” she said. “That’s an interesting contrast [...] how did you feel about that suggestion?” came the reply. Mayo looked pretty content with her choice.
Taking away the €10k cheque — which was at least 2m long — 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 €2,500 each. A bonus prize — a car, of course — went to a group which built a platform to generate videos based on festive memories from different family members.
In a fireside discussion, rounding off the event, Mayo asked Staniszewski if he had any advice for the attendees:“You can serve globally from the start. Where you are is no limitation to who you want to reach out to.
“But it feels like I should be getting advice from you guys.”
