Hackathon resources
This is the resource page from Londonmaxxing 003: Maxxing London Hackathon. The tools, open data and ideas are all still here, so keep building.
Partner Platforms
Data & APIs
Open, well-documented data to build on, grouped by theme. Most need no key at all.
Optional
What Londoners are asking for
Real, validated requests from Londoners, and the people you'd be helping. Optional: build for one of these, or bring your own.
Finding your people in a new city
A free evening when staying in and scrolling feels like the easy choice.
Who you'd help: Newcomers and anyone whose default is to stay home alone.
Leaving an event having met no one who matters, or starting a project with no team.
Who you'd help: Founders, builders, designers and operators trying to find the right collaborators in a fragmented London scene.
Moving through London
A wheelchair user or parent with a buggy mid-journey, when a lift fails and the original plan ends.
Who you'd help: Wheelchair users, parents with buggies, anyone who can't take stairs.
Committing to a place to live
About to sign a tenancy on a street you know nothing about.
Who you'd help: First-time renters and anyone moving to an unfamiliar London postcode.
Choosing between a flat closer to work vs cheaper rent further out.
Who you'd help: Renters weighing rent, commute, hours and money.
Discovering the city beyond your patch
A free hour with phone in hand, defaulting to the same five places.
Who you'd help: Residents and newcomers who only walk the same three streets between home, work and the tube.
An ordinary walk past extraordinary history nobody tells you about.
Who you'd help: Anyone walking through London willing to be surprised.
Getting a venture off the ground
Deciding to start something real-world and hitting the wall of 'what am I legally required to do?'
Who you'd help: First-time founders and small-business starters (e.g. food stall, short-let, childminding service, clinic).
Every time a team re-scrapes the same tired sources because what Londoners know never becomes callable.
Who you'd help: The whole London builder ecosystem: the people building everything else on this list.
Real-world examples: Xylo (AI for planning, £2.8m pre-seed) · ukgovscan · wheredoesitallgo (already built, build on these)
The planning bottleneck: air-con needs planning permission (up to 8 weeks) · planning is slow and arbitrary
Getting help from public services & care
When someone entitled to support can't navigate the website to claim it.
Who you'd help: Elderly, low-literacy and non-English-speaking Londoners blocked by dense forms.
Someone eligible for support (benefits, refunds, hardship funds, bursaries, dormant accounts) and never claiming it.
Who you'd help: ONE specific group (e.g. low-income parents, recent migrants, students, carers) who routinely miss out on support they're owed.
Building a future here: work & learning
Applying endlessly with no experience and no way into a shifting tech/AI job market.
Who you'd help: Young adults, career-switchers and AI-displaced workers in ONE specific sector.
Walking into a GP appointment, a job interview, or a parents' evening, knowing the conversation will be hard.
Who you'd help: Non-native English speakers wanting to handle one specific real-life situation with confidence.
London's civic facades: first & strong impressions
Brought to you by
London's highest-'eye-fall' spots (station entrances, the K2 phone box by Westminster) let down by clutter, redundant signage and neglect, when they're the city's first impression to the world.
Who you'd help: Everyone arriving in or seeing London: residents, tourists, and the millions who meet the city through a screen.
No way to see which streets and facades earn the most attention (footfall plus international social-media impressions), so design and upkeep go where they show least.
Who you'd help: Boroughs and the GLA deciding where aesthetic attention matters most, at scale.