Co-op Hackathon 

Promoting digital innovation in the co‑op movement is a major part of our strategy. We want to amplify and increase collaboration around tech – how we develop it, how we share it and how it empowers co‑ops across our movement.

The Co-op Hackathon took place on 19-20 October 2023 in London, bringing together tech co‑operators to collaboratively develop digital solutions for the UK co‑op movement and beyond. 

The event was delivered by Co‑operatives UK in partnership with The Co‑operative Bank – supporting fair and ethical business together.

Projects being developed 

We had an amazing response and received some great proposals for a wide range of innovative ideas to work on during the event. From developing open source AI to using tech to tackle poverty and the energy and climate crises. Here’s a selection of the ideas we’ll be working on – and you can read about all the projects:

• Oracle Owl – a self-hosted, open-source speaking AI system from Animorph Co-op that allows anyone to speak to an AI owl agent in real time. 
• Community Energy Connect – a volunteering platform connecting skilled individuals to community energy groups, offering tangible action to tackle the climate crisis. 
• Kandoroo – improving the user experience of the Kandoroo platform, which works to empower people in poverty to shop with dignity and respect. 
• Air Register – developing an open-source version of this app, which is used by community benefit societies to manage their community shares registers. 
• Signalise – improving and speeding up this platform, which connects deaf people, interpreters and healthcare providers to deliver sign language interpreting. 
• Roost – a platform for helping groups find, buy and manage co-op homes, now wanting to develop apps designed for living together. 
• LCR Civic Data Co-operative – developing a crowd-sourced system for the management of citizen generated data in the Liverpool city region. 

What's next?

We are planning another Hackathon in 2024, as well as more activity around co-operative tech and digital. To be the first to hear about this, sign up to our newsletter.