Green Circles Manchester — a free AI hackathon with all ten Greater Manchester boroughs
Here’s something a bit different: a free, one-day AI hackathon at the Renold Building on Friday 16 October that puts Greater Manchester’s ten boroughs at the centre of the build.
The format is genuinely interesting. Each of the ten boroughs — Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan — gets its own team: a council representative who owns a real local challenge, a tech mentor, a business mentor, and three mentees. Challenges are the kind of thing councils actually wrestle with — residents navigating services in plain English, matching volunteers to community groups, routine enquiry triage, skills-matching for school leavers.
You spend the day building a prototype, then pitch it to a panel of VCs, council leaders and industry figures. Strong projects could lead to employer introductions, continued development support, and investor exposure.
There are 60 mentee places and the whole thing is free, supported by Barclays Eagle Labs and Silicon Mingle. You don’t need to be an expert — students, recent grads, career-changers and self-taught AI tinkerers are all explicitly welcome. A rare chance to get hands-on AI experience on a real problem, with actual decision-makers in the room.
