LA-AI Insights: Hatch-a-thon 2026 is in the books!

Your weekly AI news and updates from Lower Alabama

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

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Last Thursday, over 200 people filled the University of South Alabama's Fairhope campus for Hatch-a-thon Demo Night. Fifty people got up and presented solutions they'd built over the past two weeks. Real apps, real tools, real solutions to problems that local businesses and organizations actually have.

We had three tracks: Veterans for experienced developers, Explorers for people just getting started, and High School. Every track delivered.
Anthony Villanueva took the top Veteran spot. In the Explorer category, Laura and Jenny Florey won first place as a mother-daughter team. Carrie and Courtney French took second, also mother-daughter. Misty Sobol grabbed third. The High School track was stacked: Titan Lee Lieberg won overall, Ezra Langley earned Most Innovative, Kaleb Beauchamp took Best Technical, Benjamin Earls won Best Presentation, and Holden Gray received the Rick Miller Community Impact Award.
Mothers building alongside their daughters. High school students presenting apps that could genuinely ship. People who'd never written a line of code two weeks ago standing on stage demoing working software. To think about how much different this is than three years ago, it's just mind-boggling 
I've gotten Some really great messages messages from parents and teachers. One parent told me, "I have a different kid this morning. He's so full of ideas." Another said they'd never seen their child this excited about anything. A teacher reached out to say one of his students is now all-in on building apps and won't stop talking about new ideas.
Just a few years  ago, building a functional app required months (years?) of development experience or a budget to hire someone. Today, someone with a good idea and the willingness to learn can put together something meaningful in two weeks. AI coding tools have changed what's possible, and watching 50 people prove that on a Thursday night in Fairhope was pretty cool.

Thank you to everyone that made this possible. 
This Friday
If you're in the area, join us this Friday, February 6th for our monthly LA-AI meetup. 3:30 PM at 314 Magnolia Ave in Fairhope. First Friday of the month, as always. Would love to see you there.

P.S. I promise we'll be discussing OpenClaw/Moltbot/Moltbook and all other lobster-related AI

Upcoming Events

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314 Magnolia Ave., Fairhope, AL

This Week in AI

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6. Google Deepmind pioneer David Silver departs to found AI startup, betting LLMs alone won't reach superintelligence

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Community Highlights

Winners!

Why is Jeff so serious?

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