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Mapping for sustainable, affordable housing with Homefolk
Join homefolk CIC and Student Social Enterprise for 1 day hackathon focussed on coding and mapping land use for sustainable, affordable homes. This event brings together students with an interest in tech, urban planning, sustainability and social impact. Across one rapid-paced day, you'll work in pairs to develop the early stages of code for a land use tool that advances homefolk’s housing model. Along the way, you'll learn about how sustainable, affordable housing can solve the housing crisis facing "generation rent".
📍 Location: Institute of Education, Room C3.09 . Accessibility information and building directions available here.
⏰ Timings: 10am-6pm on February 21st.
🌯 Catering: Plant-based lunch and snacks provided.
About Homefolk
homefolk (CIC) is a youth-led social enterprise seeking to tackle the housing crisis through the ‘homefolk model’ for community owned tinyhome villages. Their model takes advantage of marginal spaces in the changing cityscape to add density to existing urban areas, with potential for tens of thousands of new homes.
About the Hackathon
What is the challenge?
homefolk (CIC) want to create an open-access tool to embed on our current website hosted by GoDaddy ltd. (or future, green-server hosted website) that enables users to input a London postcode and to obtain detailed surface area data as an output. The tool will provide insights into building surface area, paved and non-paved areas, and make clear remaining incalculable/hard-to-categorise surfaces, all mapped against neighbourhood and London averages.
We don't need to have a tool that we can pop on our website at the end of the hackathon day, but together we can break down the process to get there & definitely can begin or maybe even complete many of those sub-processes.
The wider context for why we're doing this: cities like London have a huge variability in urban fabric and at present, there are no easy-use open access tools to help people in city planning, or designing new models for housing like homefolk, to understand the amount of paving we're up against.
What you can expect:
- Paired coding sessions — Create tools that help visualise and analyse land use and housing potential.
- Mapping challenges — Use mapping techniques and data to highlight opportunities for sustainable housing in urban spaces.
- Real-world impact — Your work will feed directly into homefolk’s efforts to innovate in affordable and community-driven housing solutions.
- Teamwork & learning — No matter your background, you’ll work with others, learn new skills, and build practical outputs for change.
Who’s it for?
This hackathon is open to all UCL students — from beginners to experienced coders and mappers. You don’t need to be a tech expert, just curious and ready to collaborate!
Why join?
- Real problem, real-world solution: This hackathon isn't just an exercise. Your outputs will provide the groundwork to accelerate homefolk's model for sustainable, affordable housing.
- Build practical, in-demand skills — Gain hands-on experience in coding, mapping, data analysis and collaborative problem-solving, all highly valued by employers across tech, sustainability and urban policy.
- Learn from a social enterprise — Work alongside homefolk, a youth-led community interest company, and understand how social enterprises turn ideas into tangible social impact.
- Collaborate across disciplines — Meet students from different courses and backgrounds, and learn how tech, geography, design and policy intersect in real housing solutions.
- Make a difference in a day — Whether you’re new to hackathons or an experienced coder, your contribution will help push forward innovative responses to one of the UK’s most urgent social issues.
For any questions, please contact [email protected]
About Student Social Enterprise
Student Social Enterprise is a hub for UCL students wanting to build social impact ventures, collaborate with community partners and scale ideas. Based in Students’ Union UCL, we exist to create a culture of social entrepreneurship at UCL. We support students from idea to impact through programmes that build practical skills, foster community development and create meaningful networking opportunities.
Help celebrate the Bicentennial by giving back... This event is part of UCL200- click here for the full programme.
This event is part of the 28 Days of Sustainability 2026 programme - click here for the full programme.
FAQs
- Do I need to be a coding pro?
Beginners welcome- as long as you're passionate about the topic, you'll be able to contribute. Seasoned programmers are also highly encouraged to join- we'll need you!
- What if I don't know anyone?
That's okay- most people won't! We'll be there to great a supportive atmosphere. This event is introvert friendly- no need to talk if you'd rather focus on the coding.
- Can I participate virtually?
Yes! If you would like to participate virtually, please just email us at [email protected]