The Newham Futures Hackathon: a day of ideas, action & imagination

On 26th September, the Royal Docks buzzed with energy as changemakers from across Newham—UCL East, University of East London (UEL), local voluntary organisations, faith groups, young people, policymakers, start-ups, and businesses—came together for a Hackathon with a purpose: to co-create bold, community-led projects that will shape the borough’s next year and lay the foundation for the next decade.  The Hackathon comes after two previous workshops in which community used co-design to help imagine a strategic future for the borough.

Backstory

Over the past year, Nidhi Chaudhary, Associate Professor (Teaching), who founded the Co-Design Lab at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP), has been leading the initiative with Newham as part of our ongoing strategic relationship and MoU supported by the work of the Vice-Provost (Strategy) Office and the Pro-Provost (London) Office.  The Lab had partnered with Newham to launch Newham Futures Innovation Lab, and to inform the vision for the borough. 

Past workshops saw representatives from council, young people and local community organisations come together to imagine a future for the borough in engaging and playful ways. Participants explored Newham’s past, present, and future using creative foresight tools like the ‘Futures Triangle’. This exercise takes the ‘Baobab Tree’ as a metaphor where the roots represent the borough’s past, the trunk its present, and the leaves its future possibilities to create thematic vision statements for the next ten years. Participants also created a ‘River of Possibility’ to imagine what success could look like by 2035 for different themes as well as what key challenges needed to be considered for the next year.  A live AI tool helped turn their ideas into clear vision statements and challenges—giving everyone participating a sense of ownership and direction.

On the day

The Hackathon was all about turning ideas into action. With challenges already voted on by participants, the room was buzzing with excitement. The goal? To build real, tangible prototypes for community-led initiatives based on the challenges.

Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz OBE kicked off the day with a powerful message: “Today is an example of how in Newham we want to do it differently… to showcase our people, our place. But also, to collectively develop a blueprint that shows what powerful partnerships can do.”

Nidhi Chaudhary facilitated the day, explaining, “The aim of co-design is to bring all our voices together to influence the policy process. Today we are all gathered here collectively to think about a future for Newham.” 

The participants tackled challenges including: Unite to Ignite—Empowering Community Centred change between the private and voluntary sector (Cohesive Communities); Supporting creative futures—opportunities for local people in the arts and culture sector (Vibrant Culture); Future-Ready Career Pathways—mobilising networks to develop the education to employment pipeline and harnessing entrepreneurial spirit (Resilient Economy); Sustaining Newham’s SME’s together—exchanging skills, knowledge and resources with larger businesses (Resilient Economy) and Climate Sustainability Network—building collective responses and community-led action (Sustainable Environment).

Frameworks to support ideation, prototyping and project planning

Using the ‘Crazy Fours’ as a co-design method, participants rapidly sketched ideas of projects from different perspectives:

• What would the NHS do?

• What would Nike do?

• What would OpenAI do?

• What would you/ your organisation do?

This playful approach helped unlock fresh thinking and led to viable, innovative prototypes—with milestones and commitments from project partners to take them forward.

The atmosphere was electric—full of curiosity, creativity, and collaboration. Post-its covered the walls, ideas flowed freely, and conversations were democratic and dynamic. It was a living example of how co-design can empower communities to shape their own futures to have local policy impact.

What’s next?

The projects will now move into the next phase under the Newham Futures Innovation Lab, with a celebration event planned for February to showcase progress and impact.

The Hackathon proved one thing loud and clear: Newham is brimming with talent, imagination, and the will to build a better future—together. And UCL East is proud to be part of that journey to see how these projects develop and shape up.