Bilbao Says You Don't Need to Become an Engineer to Build With AI. His Hackathon at Colsubsidio Proves It. What That Means for the Companies We Build Software For.
Bilbao says you don't need to become an engineer to build with AI. His hackathon at Colsubsidio this week proves it. What that means for the companies we build software for.
Project App
Engineering Team
Andres Bilbao is running a hackathon at Colsubsidio from July 22-26. Five days. Developers, designers, product people, and entrepreneurs. Two tracks: one for people who already code, one for people who don't - where you build AI agents and automations without writing a single line of code. What comes out of it could go into production. A three-million-person organization as the testing ground. That's not a workshop. That's a live demonstration of something that's been true for a while but is becoming undeniable: you don't need to become an engineer to build with AI. And that changes more than most people in the software industry are ready to acknowledge.
The No-Code Track Is the More Interesting One
The no-code track at the hackathon is the more interesting one. Not because it's easier, but because of what it signals. When someone from a business, marketing, or operations background can build a working AI agent in five days without writing code - something that could actually go into production at a three-million-member organization - the definition of who can build software has changed fundamentally. That's not a future statement. That's what's happening this week in Bogota.
"If you come from business, marketing or sales, you don't need to become an engineer to start building with AI. In the No-Code track you build agents and automations without writing a line of code."
— Andres Bilbao, 30X CEO
What This Means for Companies That Build Software Professionally
This creates something that the software industry is going to spend the next few years figuring out. If anyone can build a basic AI tool without code, what happens to the companies that build software professionally? The answer - which I think is pretty clear if you look at what's actually being built in these hackathons - is that the baseline shifts upward. Clients who used to say 'we can't afford to build that' start showing up with basic tools already built and asking 'can you make this production-ready and integrate it with everything else?' The demand for good software development doesn't go away. The starting point of the conversation changes.
- The baseline shifts: clients arrive with higher expectations of what's possible.
- No-code builds the proof of concept. Professional development builds what actually scales and integrates.
- The clients who've experimented with no-code tools ask better questions when they hire developers.
- The conversation starts further along - which means less time explaining basics and more time solving real problems.
The Scale of What 30X Is Actually Building
Bilbao's 30X has trained more than 149,000 builders across LATAM - people at Fintual, Nequi, Davivienda, Colsubsidio, Comfama, Seguros Bolivar. Those are people in financial services, insurance, and benefits organizations who now know how to build with AI. They're going to go back to their companies with tools they built, automations they created, and expectations of what's possible that are fundamentally different from before the program. That has downstream effects for every software provider those companies work with.
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- 1You don't need to become an engineer to build with AI - and the hackathon proves it with real production-ready output.
- 2When non-technical people can build basic AI tools, the baseline shifts: clients arrive with higher expectations and better questions.
- 3No-code builds proof of concept. Professional development builds what scales and integrates with everything else.
- 4149,000+ builders trained across LATAM through 30X means the downstream effects on software expectations are already in motion.
Bilbao's hackathon at Colsubsidio this week is a live demonstration of something that changes the software development industry in ways that are still unfolding. When someone from sales or marketing or operations can build a working AI tool in five days without writing code, the question for companies like ProjectApp isn't whether this threatens the business. It's what the business looks like when the baseline shifts and every client arrives with higher expectations of what software can do.
If you're thinking about what AI building capabilities mean for your team or your company's software roadmap, write to me. That's a conversation I'm actively navigating right now.