What I learned facilitating an AI hackathon for ACT House in Miami

By Maria Kim 

In December, ACT House joined the more than 80,000 people who descended upon Miami for the 21st annual Art Basel. The highly anticipated event, which built its reputation as a world-class art fair, has transformed into a global destination for everything from art and fashion to cutting-edge technology and innovation. 

To tap into the Miami tech scene, we hosted our first #TechBasel Build Day X in partnership with Tech Equity Collective, a Google initiative driving Black innovation in tech, Florida Power & Light and the Center for Black Innovation. The 24-hour hackathon, which focused on AI, brought together over 75 innovators from across the nation to form teams, collaborate on ideas and build working prototypes. 

Here’s what we learned:

Miami attracts top-tier tech talent

Roughly 25% of the founders and entrepreneurs who attended Build Day X were from outside of Miami. Some traveled from Baton Rouge, Dallas and even as far as Detroit to take part in #TechBasel – and these founders were hungry. More than one-third (~35%) of participants who took our survey said they already had an idea of what they wanted to build at Build Day X and some even had their teams picked out before they arrived. 

Not only did Miami draw a crowd, but the talent was next-level. Most participants had deep experience in tech and AI – some even used large language models (LLMs) every day to complete various tasks. This blend of founders and innovators created a collaborative environment for people to share their experience and learn from one another.  

Diversity is key for execution

When it comes to building products for consumers, it’s necessary for the people building the product to be as diverse as the people using it. This includes diversity of race and gender, but also diversity in socioeconomic background, skill sets, education, and even lived experiences. For example, we had a participant who worked in the healthcare industry for over a decade and, while they were familiar with the problems plaguing the industry and had ideas for how to solve it, they lacked the technical skills to execute their vision. By partnering with others who could help build what they couldn’t, they were able to bring their idea to life.

The accelerated collaboration was fueled by the ACT Assessment, our proprietary team evaluation tool that provides a common language to help people better understand who they are and how they work. We used this model as a guide to help participants communicate, create, and collaborate. That was key to helping teams make real progress and execute their ideas. 

Plus, having a diverse mix of participants gives those who are more experienced the opportunity to provide mentorship to newcomers, which can be rewarding and enlightening. At the same time, newcomers can provide a fresh perspective on how to approach problems and develop solutions. 

Open minds lead to better outcomes  

When it comes to hackathons, it’s important to come with an open mind because being a good developer isn’t enough to build a good product. Participants who showed up solely to win the cash prize missed out on opportunities to collaborate with other founders and innovators, which ultimately limited their potential and their chances of winning. 

On the flip side, participants who showed up to challenge themselves were more likely to receive actionable feedback and mentorship to help them stretch outside their comfort zone. They were also more likely to take home the cash prize. 

#TechBasel brought together a diverse group of entrepreneurs from all over the world, creating a week-long incubator for innovation. We were lucky to have so many tech-minded people show up eager to collaborate and solve real-world challenges.

This was our first Build Day X in Miami, but it won’t be our last. We look forward to welcoming more innovators at the next #TechBasel.

Maria Kim is the head of insights at ACT House, where she leverages ACT House’s proprietary evaluation, the ACT Assessment, to help innovators build teams and unlock their full potential at work. She lives in Tulsa.