Vibe-a-thon

An AI-hackathon programme that starts with a demo, not a deck.

Your people take the problems they already work around and demo a working prototype by 5pm. Mixed teams, no coding experience needed. Then 30, 60 or 90 days of Nurture and Deploy.

Set up your own workspace in about a minute, no date needed yet.

80 people
1 day
40+ ideas → working prototypes

That was Rome2Rio: finance and ops in the room alongside the engineers.

An AI hackathon where the people with the problem build the fix.

The day sits inside a longer programme, so the shortest Vibe-a-thon still runs for a month. It starts weeks earlier, online, in cohorts of up to 150.

VISION VIBE VALUE FRAME FOCUS IDEATE VIBE NURTURE DEPLOY
Rome2Rio
Case study

We ran 80 people at Rome2Rio through a whole-company Vibe-a-thon

Over 40 ideas became working prototypes by 5pm, built by the people who live the problems. The write-up covers why they ran it and what changed afterwards.

Read the case study

What it costs.

From A$17,000 including 30 days of support

Every Vibe-a-thon is the facilitated day and a nurture programme after it. The tiers differ by how long that programme runs.

  • 30 days

    The day, then a month of support while the builds are still fresh.

    • Human support from us in the same Slack
    • One or two facilitated cohort check-ins
  • 60 days

    Two months, when the cohort is larger or the builds need longer.

    • Includes our Nurture programme and Slack bot
    • Check-ins continue roughly every second week
  • 90 days

    A quarter, long enough to get from prototype to production.

    • Everything in the 60-day programme
    • Also includes our Deploy programme and agent evaluation platform
    • Check-ins across the full quarter
    • Us working the most promising prototypes towards production with you

All prices are AUD and exclude GST. Cohorts run from a single team up to 150 people. We quote the 60 and 90-day programmes on the size of yours, so bring us a rough headcount and we will put a number to it.

What each person walks out with.

  • Executive

    You’re hosting this one.

    You set the vision and the three to five themes. Every AI assistant in the room runs on them, so the ideas come back pointed at what you care about.

    You leave with prototypes, a ranked backlog, and champions with names.

    “Amazing. Can we ship it? Serious question.”

    Vanessa D’Souza, Director of Finance, Rome2Rio
  • Expert

    You know the problem. Now build the fix.

    You’ve been working around this problem for years, so nobody knows it better. Describe the fix in plain English and AI does the heavy lifting.

    You leave with a working prototype, and the “I made that” grin.

    “[This] will make such a huge difference to move fast.”

    Yolanta Rado, Data Operations Manager, Rome2Rio
  • Engineer

    Vibe coding that survives review.

    You’ve seen the slop this usually produces. Not here. You work in a real codebase, everything gets reviewed, and the skills carry over. Pick the team you anchor, then show them how far these tools actually go.

    You leave with the skills and the deployments you built.

    “The use of public developed skills is like the next version of open source code.”

    Cameron Brown, Software Engineer, Rome2Rio

A look inside, no sign-in needed.

FreshVibe is where the ideas get shaped, online, before the day, and where the teams build on the day itself. The screens below are the ideas half, captured from a real workspace, so you can see how it works before you talk to anyone. Open any of them for a closer look.

  1. The FreshVibe event vision screen, titled “Set the vision & themes”, showing the host’s vision for the day above three strategic themes, each with a priority and a note on why it matters. 01 · Set the vision The host frames the day
  2. The FreshVibe Explore screen. On the left, someone describes rebuilding the same operations report by hand every Monday. On the right, a draft opportunity brief assembles itself with a title, summary, problem and impact. 02 · Shape an idea Describe the problem
  3. The prioritisation board, titled “Vote on the strongest opportunities”, showing a grid of submitted briefs with vote and comment counts. 03 · Read and vote The cohort picks the strongest
  4. The team formation screen, titled “Form balanced teams”, with each brief tagged balanced, needs balance or solo, the skill it still needs, and a “Join team” button. 04 · Team up Teams form around the winners

By the morning of the event, every team already knows what it is building and who is on it. The build and the demo are all that is left, and they happen in the room, in FreshVibe.

Want the parts a screenshot cannot show? We will walk you through a live workspace and what the day would look like for your team.

Book a demo

Eight steps, from the weeks before to the months after.

Four of them happen online before anyone walks into the room, and the last two run long after everyone has walked out.

In the weeks before

Online, in FreshVibe
01

Set the vision

A leader names what the day is for, and the three to five themes ideas should serve.

02

Shape an idea

You talk to the AI about the part of your job that drags. It shapes a brief with you.

03

Read and vote

The briefs are shared. People read them, comment, and vote for the strongest.

04

Team up

Teams form around the top briefs, matched to the skills each one still needs.

On the day

In the room, together
05

Build

Describe what you want in plain English. FreshVibe builds it with you, live.

06

Demo

Show the room what you built. Watch it land, and pick up ideas for where it goes next.

After the day

For 30, 60 or 90 days
07

Nurture

Your cohort gets the Nurture Slack bot, our people, and facilitated check-ins.

08

Deploy

We help your people get the most promising prototypes into production.

You don’t build the future in a day. You start it in one.

Programmes run 30, 60 or 90 days beyond the event.

Nurture

Your cohort gets the Nurture Slack bot, with our people answering alongside it in the same Slack.

Every second week or so there is a facilitated check-in, 60 to 90 minutes. The 30-day programme runs one or two of those. The longer programmes keep the same rhythm right through.

Deploy

As part of the 90-day programme, we help your people get the most promising prototypes into production.

That means security and architecture reviews, plus evaluation software we built ourselves, which measures how reliably an AI build performs and shows what to improve next.

Run by people who do this for a living.

  • Ben Hogan, Freshwater Futures Ben Hogan AI advisor

    Twenty years in enterprise software, now advising leadership teams on where AI actually pays.

  • Dr Brad Hodge, Freshwater Futures Dr Brad Hodge Behaviour scientist

    Works the human side of adoption: the cultural and structural reasons a good tool goes unused.

  • Zoe Hogan-West, Freshwater Futures Zoe Hogan-West Product designer and AI adoption coach

    Designs the tools, then coaches the people using them from theory into daily practice.

The next “we should do something with AI” meeting could be a demo instead.

  • Single sign-on
  • Your ideas stay yours
  • Our cloud or yours

Frequently asked questions

What is a Vibe-a-thon?

A facilitated one-day AI hackathon we run for your team. Mixed groups of engineers and the people who live the problem take something they already work around and build a working prototype, with AI doing the heavy lifting. The day sits inside a longer programme: ideas are shaped, argued over and staffed online in the weeks before, and the most promising prototypes go through 30, 60 or 90 days of validation towards production.

What does it cost?

From A$17,000, which covers the facilitated day and 30 days of support afterwards. There are three tiers and the only difference between them is how long the nurture programme runs: 30, 60 or 90 days. We quote the 60 and 90-day programmes on the size of your cohort. All prices are AUD and exclude GST.

How far ahead do we need to book?

Four to six weeks from the first call. Six if you want it running inside your own private cloud, because that needs setup time with your IT team, and four on our hosted option. Most of that time is your people shaping ideas, so nobody spends the day warming up.

What do you need from our IT team?

Nothing, on our hosted option. The only case where your IT team is involved is a private-cloud deployment, where the whole thing runs inside your own cloud, and then we work alongside them to get it deployed there.

What if nothing makes it to production?

Not everything built on the day should reach production, and pretending otherwise is how innovation theatre happens. What you are buying is a shortlist your own people built and believe in, plus a nurture programme after the day. As part of the 90-day programme, that includes us working the most promising prototypes towards production with you.

What actually happens in the weeks before the day?

Four things, all online. A leader sets the vision for the day and three to five strategic themes. Everyone talks to the AI about a problem they live with, and it shapes that into a structured brief. The briefs go up where the whole cohort can read them, comment, and vote. Then teams form around the strongest briefs, based on the skills each one still needs.

Who decides what people work on?

You do, at the level that matters. The vision and themes a leader sets go into the prompt every participant’s AI assistant runs on, so ideas arrive pointed at what the business cares about. People still raise their own problems, which is the point, and the cohort votes on which ones get built.

Does everyone need coding experience?

No. Marketers, operations, leadership, product managers and engineers all take part together, and the AI does the heavy lifting. If you are not writing code, you are shaping the problem, designing how it should work, or keeping the team moving. Every one of those is a job the team needs.

What if a team’s idea is too ambitious?

Facilitators help scope ideas to what’s achievable in a day. The goal is a working prototype, not production perfection.

Can we run this across multiple locations?

Yes, we can facilitate distributed Vibe-a-thons, but the energy works best in person. Hybrid setups are possible but require careful facilitation.