Xiaohongshu
How could we reimagine paved spaced in London?
What we did: Sustainable Housing Hackathon
- Partner: homefolk is a youth-led CIC pioneering a new model for sustainable and affordable housing.
- Origins: homefolk wanted to develop a user-friendly land use mapping tool, but lacking coding expertise in their team. They approached us to see how students might fill this gap.
- What we did: Co-designed a rapid 1 day sprint where students would use their coding and mapping skills to develop a prototype for homefolk.
- Funding model: All event costs including speaker fee and travel expenses for homefolk covered by UCL SU.
- Outcomes: Students produced prototypes for the tool using a mix of coding, mapping and AI skills. They documented their technical process, software use and rationale for the final prototype. homefolk are currently sorting through the outcomes of the hackathon with the goals of launching the tool on their website. Some students are planning to volunteer with homefolk to continue the development of the tool and ongoing technical moderations.
Organisation Testimonial
“ My name is Dr Adam Mitchell & I’m one of the co-directors of a social enterprise called homefolk, working in environmental housing.
From the first instance reaching out to Clarissa, Ida & wider team at UCL SU, we have been consistently impressed by the professionalism, passion and curiosity that guide their work. Early on, their team made great efforts to understand our social enterprise in our ambitions and organisational model, & used that knowledge to best assist us in planning and delivery of a one-day ‘housing hackathon’ event.
Around 20-30 students with skills in coding, team work and problem solving, combined with spatial geography experts advancing their studies at the Bartlett School of Architecture- the results homefolk were handed over were astonishing. The hackathon has elevated our mission through accessible, user friendly tools we can actually embed on our website, to help site visitors understand our housing model in much greater detail spatially. homefolk now possess a long-term bespoke digital asset that will advance our mission for years to come, from only one (very well planned) hackathon event.
Many thanks to the stellar team members mentioned, UCL student community & and to the wider UCL Student’s Union for this ‘enterprising’ and innovative approach to engage the next generation, through social enterprises, on the greatest challenges of our times.”
Gallery
