Thrad Backs RUN/HACK, Europe's First Running Hackathon, Alongside ElevenLabs, O2 & Wispr Flow
by on 28th Aug 2026 in News
Thrad, the advertising platform for AI conversations, has announced its sponsorship of RUN/HACK, Europe's first running hackathon, taking place in London on Saturday 29 August.
Presented by TAG and organised by Zizou Brahmi, Tijs Nieuwboer, Siena Kinsale, Luke Balabanovic, Rachel Macnaghten and Aru N, the event runs on a single rule: only the teammate currently out on the loop is allowed to touch the product. Building is hands-free from a phone, voice in, with cloud agents doing the work and output live on the screens at home base. The moment nobody on a team is running, their agents pause. One hundred places were made available and more than 250 people applied.
Thrad joins a sponsor roster that includes ElevenLabs, O2, Wispr Flow, Healf, Cognition x Poke, and more.
Beyond the sponsorship, Thrad is contributing to the prize pool with USD$3000 (£2,208). These ad credits are spendable across Thrad's network of 50+ AI publishers, meaning teams that ship a product on Saturday can put it in front of users the following week.
"Advertising funds free access to information, keeps independent creators alive, and in the age of AI it is the mechanism that keeps intelligence accessible to everyone, not just those who can pay," said Andrea Tortella, co-founder and CEO of Thrad. "That is not an abstract argument. One hundred builders will spend Saturday shipping products with agents, and the reason they can do it for free is that a group of companies decided to pay for it. Putting ad credits in the prize pool is the same idea one step further: the winners leave with distribution, not just a trophy."
The format is an unusually direct test of how AI products are actually built now. Every team at RUN/HACK will work through voice, delegate execution to agents, and never sit at a desk, which is the interface shift Thrad's four native ad formats are designed for.
"We are not watching AI advertising happen from the sidelines," Tortella added. "We are in the room, running campaigns, learning from live data, and building the infrastructure for everyone who follows. Backing the people building the next hundred AI products is part of the same job."
RUN/HACK takes place in London on Saturday 29 August 2026, with the run window from 12:30 to 18:00 and winners announced at 20:00. A San Francisco edition has been announced for a future date.
More information: therunninghackathon.com
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