To inspire, train, and connect the next generation of collaborative problem solvers, to design and implement effective solutions for social impact around the world.
Tiny Hacker House empowers remote tech professionals to thrive in collaborative environments by delivering curated co-living and co-building spaces. Our casual yet tech-driven approach equips digital nomads with the tools they need to innovate and connect.
We are a community incubator, an advocacy campaign, and a working set of grassroots projects taking on homelessness, affordable housing, and gentrification through community-driven entrepreneurship, sustainability, and innovation.
With Tiny Hacker House, professionals can focus on what truly matters: building the future.
Weekend-to-week-long sprint events. Builders, designers, and engineers ship working prototypes solving community-scale problems.
Public-facing showcases. Robotics, IoT, fabrication, hardware, open to families, students, and the curious. Live demos, build stations, prize tables.
Brief-driven design sprints. Recent: Challenge 6.0 at UT Austin, Challenge 5.0 with 8,000+ attendees, Challenge 4.0 with GirldayUT.
Geodesic dome structures and TinyDomeHomes. Includes WonderDome, a 13.5-ft truncated icosahedron, and steel-framed studios built in under four hours.
Large-format additive fabrication. Print structures, furniture, prototype parts at architectural scale. Open to resident makers.
Networked-device prototyping bench. Sensors, microcontrollers, mesh networks, and ML on-device, wired up and ready to be hacked on.
Mattresses are one of the hardest objects to recycle. We pull them apart and design ways to repurpose every layer, steel, foam, textile, into usable goods. A working case study in circular-economy waste repurposing.
A chess education program built to rebuild the way kids learn pattern, patience, and long-range thinking. Distributed through partner schools and community centers.
A mobile app that matches volunteers with community needs in minutes, and won first place at HackForLA. Now an open template for cities to adapt.
Gourmet meals delivered to people experiencing homelessness, built from rescued food, prepared by trained cooks, served with the dignity of a real restaurant plate.
An emergency-response mobile app for the moment after 911 — letting neighbors, schools, and community responders know what's happening on their block in real time.
A real-estate development partnership with the City of Austin to bring affordable housing online, pairing tiny-house construction, community land, and a Community Innovation Center.
A purpose-built outdoor classroom constructed for and with girls in STEM, in partnership with GirldayUT — serving 8,000+ students across multiple program years.
A 13.5-foot truncated icosahedron art installation, built, hauled, and reassembled at Burning Man and Great American Tiny House Show. VR / AR / MR / XR experiences inside.
Anil Pattni founded Tiny Hacker House in 2010 as a small experiment in what would happen if you built a workshop where the people who think about housing, technology, and community actually shared the same room.
Sixteen years later, it's a permanent fixture in Austin's design and maker scene, a community incubator that has run hackathons, makerfaires, design challenges, and field-built housing partnerships with the City of Austin.
Anil's practice spans futurism, content, and digital media, and the hospitality of getting strangers to build interesting things together over a long weekend.
An occasional email on what we're building, who's coming, and where the next event lands.
Subscribe → ApplyDesigners, builders, engineers, makers, hosts, we're always looking for people who finish what they start.
Apply now → DonateEvery dollar funds prize pools, materials, food, and the next outdoor classroom for girls in STEM.
Give → FollowLive event updates, recaps, and weekly Workshop Wednesday photo dumps.
Follow → AdoptSponsor a tiny house build through the affordable housing partnership with the City of Austin.
Learn more → MerchLimited-run workshop hats. Worn by mentors, makers, and the occasional mayor.
Inquire →An occasional email from the workshop, new events, new builds, calls for makers, and the next time we throw the doors open in Austin. Hacker. Maker. TinyHouse. Pick your lane.
First name · Last name · Email · Plain dispatch · Since 2010