Interview with Hatch Fairhope on their First-Ever Hatch-a-Thon
Hatch hopes more non-profits submit tech-related challenges to first-ever Hatch-a-Thon July 24, 2025
(Plus a question to readers: Do we even need community newsletters like Let’s Go! Fairhope and articles anymore??)
On June 18, 2025 Hatch announced the “first-ever Hatch-a-thon” via a Facebook:
“Southern Alabama, we’re making history! Together with Lower Alabama AI we’re delighted to announce the first-ever Hatch-a-thon is coming to our beautiful region.”
Let’s Go! Fairhope (LG!F) has been following Hatch for several years, and wanted to learn more about this upcoming event and the new plans.
The interview below is a summary of a conversation with Keith Glines of Hatch, and Kai Gray, head of the monthly Lower Alabama AI group that meets monthly at Hatch.
But first!
A glossary and a question to readers:
1) Glossary:
A.I. = Artificial Intelligence
Developers / Development / Builders = Techies, coders, those who build and/or maintain software, websites, apps, etc.
Industry / Founders = Entrepreneurs, business owners, non-profit leaders, etc.
2) Question for readers:
Do we even need newsletters like Let’s Go! Fairhope and articles like this anymore??
Let’s Go! Fairhope (LG!F) elaborates:
LG!F (a real live human being) conducted a real live interview with two real live people (Keith and Kai), took notes, and wrote up the summary below of the conversation regarding “What is the first-ever Hatch-a-thon?”
A few minutes after completing this two-hour task, Let’s Go! Fairhope put the same question into Google AI.
A screen shot is included at the bottom…
Does anyone else have visions of empty shopping malls… ?? Is this perhaps our last article??
PLEASE EMAIL YOUR FEEDBACK to letsgofairhope at gmail.
Thank you!
LG!F: Hi, guys! Thank you so much for being willing to talk with me. Would love to help the community get to know more about what you and Hatch are doing with a few questions.
What is your title, Keith?
Glines: Experience Architect (Hatch)
What is your title, Kai?
Gray: CEO and founder of Motive AI
OK! “Let’s Go!”
Q: How did you get the idea to do a Hatch-a-thon?
A: Hatch is a subsidiary of the Economic Development Alliance of Baldwin County. Quite a few of us were sitting around thinking about our goal to work with local companies to solve problems using technology. We said “Why don’t we have industry give us the problems they are having, for example in their office automation, and we solve it with AI solutions?”
Q: What is the goal of the Hatch-a-thon?
A: We are bringing developers together with industry, and providing industry with developers to come up with solutions to challenges.
Q: What types of people are you attracting? Who is getting involved?
A: We’ve been blown away by both the involvement from the development community and industry. Basically there are two groups: The builders are the people who are signing up because they want to build solutions and compete for prizes. Then we have the local businesses who are our sponsors and are submitting ideas. (Btw, You don’t have to be a sponsor to submit an idea. Anyone anywhere can submit ideas.)
Q: Can you tell me more about these “builders?”
A: Some builders are more experienced and come with a lot of technical talent, but we have some who are just starting out with low code apps. So you don’t have to be very technical. Many are coming to our local AI meetups and just want to try it out.
Q: What about the businesses, or entrepreneurs getting involved? Who are they?
A: The companies are across the board. Everything from vacation rentals to consulting, to HR companies, it’s wide open. We are actually trying to get more non-profits involved to propose challenges. For example, The Haven would probably be able use some kind of technology assistance, but maybe they don’t have the money to invest. We’d like to get more ideas from groups like that, too.
Q: Who can submit ideas? How are ideas and challenges being submitted?
A: It’s a personal passion to serve everyone. It’s open to anyone to submit ideas – even out of state. You can go to website to submit a challenge and submit an idea.
Q: What will happen at the event?
A: Night of kick off will be July 25 at 5 PM at 314 Magnolia Avenue in Fairhope. We will print out all challenges and tape them to wall. We want to get everyone together to view them. Builders can review challenges and discuss with submitters. We have teams of developers and some are working on their own. They can choose to work on a challenge that has been submitted or do their own thing. Your challenge might not get picked, but the bigger idea is getting our area, which is full of tech talent, together with industry.
The novel part of the idea is trying to bring together actual businesses with real things and real challenges, then giving them two weeks to work on it. Then August 7, we’ll get back together in the same spot for demo night. Builders will demo what they have, in some cases it might be here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t work. We want everyone to feel comfortable. Some will be polished, others might not be as fully developed. Prizes will be awarded that night.
Q: Can you share more about the big picture?
A: We want to foster an environment where two sides (industry and developers) can see each other and for the tech folks to see there is real business here. There is a reason to work locally, and for local businesses to be exposed to talented tech individuals. Not only is our area growing rapidly, but even those who have been here their entire lives find it hard to always know or find out what is going on or know the resources that are here.
There are a lot of smart people who live in south Alabama that are freelancers or are working from home. Our goal is to get that group out and introduce them to local business and introduce business to who they can call on for their tech needs. Maybe they see someone in the room they can work with on something in the future.
Q: Who can participate? Is this event open to the community?
A: Hatch-a-thon is open to anyone. You don’t have to be a sponsor or to have submitted a challenge, you might not be building anything. This is a new thing, so there are going to be a lot of questions. This is why it’s open to everyone. It’s free to attend and we hope everyone will come see what it’s all about.
Q: Was Hatch-a-thon modeled after another program somewhere?
A: In the tech world, a hackathon refers to a groups that get together to generate a bunch of ideas or problem-solving activities that often lasts 24 or 48 hours, “often with a case of Mountain Dew to bang out a prototype and demo it that same day.”
The novelty with the Hatch-a-thon is the involvement of the local business community and real world amount of time. In this case, we are giving two weeks to come up with a working prototype and scale for prizes, and build on the ideas. We are incredibly hopeful that this works to see that it is possible! More than anything, this is about exposure and education.
Q: So is this mostly for younger, techie folks? What is the reality of general community involvement? Can my 79 years-young mom participate?
A: Absolutely not just for young people! We just learned about a 91-year-old guy creating an app using AI. We would love to connect with local seniors and walk them thru the tech. Pretty much everyone is interested in AI. They either think it’s the Devil or they’re trying to figure out what it is and what they can do with it.
Q: What is the best way to keep informed?
LG!F elaborating: For a couple years there wasn’t any information on the Hatch Facebook page or website about activities or programs though there might have been programs happening. This isn’t meant to be a criticism, but rather to explain the reason behind next few questions and make sure we know where to look for future “Let’s Go! Fairhope” events lists.
A: The Hatch website is the best place for information. We have three different locations right now while we are renovating the K-1 Center, so people won’t know where to go. So the website is #1, or they can call or find us on social media.
Q: What do you currently do at Hatch?
A: We get consulting founders to come in for advice, like today’s meeting with some guys helping direct founders in the way they need to go. We bring in experts to help in specific areas.
Q: Who are the “founders” you refer to?
A: Founders are people who have moved here with great ideas, or some have full-blown businesses and we help scale them.
Q: What does “Powered by Bessel” mean?
LG!F elaborating: This is mentioned on the Hatch website and on Facebook related to the September 2024 announcement of a relationship with Bio Alabama. Before that, there was nothing posted for a couple years, so was it perhaps organized through the university? How did people find out about it?
A: Powered by Bessel is a program that is no longer going on. It was our first accelerator for Med Tech. It brought in seven medical companies with problem-solving devices and it put them with tech experts who knew about the medical community. Bessel is an accelerator out of California. Some of the participants were Alabama creators and were able to present at Alabama’s biggest tech conference.
The images above are screenshots from the Podcast page of the Hatch website.
Q: Is Hatch geared towards the medical community?
A: Hatch is very industry agnostic, sort of a chamber for small business. The next program planned is a music program. We will be looking for artists and wanna-be artists with interests in monetizing their work, teaching them how to do that in the creative sector. The education will have a focus and then we’ll have some general topics, too. Each of the programs 8-12 weeks will be very specific; we will bring in experts and will teach the applicants.
Q: ENRG is mentioned as a monthly EOS event on the Hatch website. What is EOS and what does it do?
A: EOS is an entrepreneurial operations system. Our meetup is for people running on that platform. It takes businesses through how to organize your business, it has a tech lean. We have a guy who comes and does these sessions once a month. Hatch is about exposing the public to these kinds of things.
Q: Does that mean community members can use the Hatch space for presentations and meetings? Is there a fee?
A: Yes, we have space right now at Coastal Community College. We allow people to use the space. For example, a woman-run business cohort met there to discuss business and taxes. There is no fee. It has to be related to tech learning and be for the betterment of the community.
Q: What will the future Hatch space consist of at the K-1 Center?
A: We will have an opportunity for co-working, office space, video studio, audio studio, and meeting space for 200 attendees
Image above selected from the Hatch Fairhope website.
Now!
Here are the A.I. screenshots as promised above that could have very well replaced this article:
What do you think?
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Other than the A.I. screenshots, all images and content above was sourced from Hatch Fairhope.
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