Hey Community Heroes, it's been a while :) I'm sharing my little experience hosting AI Hackathons powered by Lovable for you, my community people.
From “what if” to working tools
Over the last few months, we have run two AI Hackathons for community builders.
Both were online. Both had 170+ registrations.
Every time, people arrived with a simple thought:
“I wish there was a tool that could help me with this.”
By the end of the hackathons, they left with working prototypes, new ideas and a sense that AI is something they can use, not just watch from a distance.
You can see some of the projects here:
It feels a bit like opening a toolbox that was locked for years.
You realise how many things you can fix once you have a way to build small, focused tools.
Why AI Hackathons make sense for community builders
Enterprise community platforms do a lot.
They are strong foundations.
But they move slowly on small, specific requests.
You might wait months, sometimes years, for a feature that helps only your type of community.
In the meantime, your team still needs to:
Welcome new members in a more personal way
Prepare events without twenty tabs open
Pull insights for leadership without drowning in spreadsheets
Support peer programmes and mentorship flows
Nudge quiet members at the right time, not at random
AI Hackathons create a third option.
You do not have to wait for the roadmap. You do not have to build a full product.
You can create tiny tools that solve one narrow community problem very well.
Think of them as small bridges you build yourself while the city plans a motorway.
What people actually built
Across the two online hackathons, we saw projects such as:
Onboarding helpers that turn long guides into simple, personal flows
Event helpers that organise sessions, tags and reminders in one place
Knowledge helpers that search across docs, forums and call notes
Simple “next best action” nudges for member success
Lightweight dashboards that show community value in plain language
Most of these projects were MVPs, and that was the point.
They were good enough to use with a small subset of members the next week.
Once people saw what they could do in a few hours, something shifted.
AI stopped feeling like a buzzword and started to feel like a workbench.
Led by Community as a living example
One big experiment came from our side.
We decided to build the Led by Community app itself using Lovable and AI.
We wanted to prove two things:
That we are a mission-driven organisation with no bias for one vendor
That AI can help unify an entire community ecosystem into a single experience
Today, inside one Lovable app, we run:
Event registration system
Member directory
Local chapters showcase
Mentorship programme management
Newsletter and notifications
PWA and mobile app
Galleries to showcase events and chapters
Leaderboard
Member contribution dashboard so members can submit stories and articles
Dark and light mode
Content management system for blog, playbooks, stories and more
Job board with daily updates
This is the same spirit as the hackathons.
Use AI to stitch things together.
Fill the gaps between platforms.
Create a clearer journey for members.
Why this matters for our industry
Community teams are often under-resourced.
You feel the pressure to prove value and do more with less.
AI Hackathons give you:
A safe place to experiment with peers
A reason to tackle problems you keep postponing
A way to test ideas fast before asking for budget
Stories and prototypes you can bring back to your stakeholders
You move from “we could” to “we did, here is a demo”.
That changes the conversation.
Join us in London this Wednesday
Now we want to take this energy offline.
On Wednesday, 3 December, we are hosting an IRL AI Hackathon for Community Builders in London, very close to King’s Cross.
You do not need to code.
You do not need to be an AI expert.
You just need:
A community problem you care about
Curiosity to try new tools
Willingness to build and share with others
We will work in small groups to turn ideas into working prototypes in a single day.
You arrive with challenges.
You leave with an app, new contacts and a clearer sense of what AI can do for your community work.
👉 Save your seat here: https://luma.com/ai-hackathon-community
40+ community builders are coming together in London this Wednesday for our AI Community Tools Hackathon near King’s Cross.
I am very proud of this one. It brings community people, AI builders and event friends into the same room to work on real problems together.
Big kudos to our partners for making it happen:
Lovable , for giving every attendee access to a Pro workspace so we can ship real prototypes in a single day.
Tessl , for opening their HQ and hosting us in such a great space.
Bevy for backing this edition and supporting our mission to build better tools and experiences for community teams. Derek Andersen, Michael Puhala and Sunny Prabhakar, thank you!
This is part of Led by Community’s mission to help community professionals experiment, learn and build together, not just listen to talks.
If you want to be in the room with 40+ community builders and spend a day turning ideas into working tools, grab one of the last seats here:
See you all soon!
Francisco