Ashley Canada of Blane Canada AI Places 9th Among 160 Global Competitors Despite Late Start, No Experience, and a Steep Learning Curve
WHEATON, IL, UNITED STATES, February 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — In a stunning debut performance, Ashley Canada, business partner at Wheaton-based Blane Canada AI, an AI and automation solutions firm, secured the 9th place finish and a $1,000 award in the Dynamous x Kiro AI Coding Hackathon announced, Feb. 14th, 2026. Competing against 160 global competitors in her first-ever hackathon, a remarkable achievement that defied expectations and demonstrated exceptional business acumen along with technical agility under pressure.
“It’s legitimately a life-changing application, and it worked extremely well,” said Cole Medin, founder and host of the Dynamous AI Mastery Community, which has over 190,000 followers. “Really accurate information, a really nice and simple architecture, just really effective at solving the problem it aimed to solve. Really impressively built. Super Powerful.”
Entering the competition with a goal of placing in the top 10, Canada faced significant challenges from the outset. As a second-career business professional with zero coding experience, she began the hackathon 10 days after the official opening, giving her 30% less time than her competitors, most of whom were experienced coders. The odds were stacked against her by virtually every measure.
What makes Canada’s achievement particularly noteworthy is the complexity of her submission. She built an AI-driven analysis pipeline that ingests complex documents, extracts verifiable facts from narrative text, maps them to predefined analytical frameworks, and generates tailored professional summaries for multiple audiences — with built-in safeguards ensuring no content is fabricated or inferred.
Despite having to learn three entirely new platforms during the competition itself, she delivered a complete, specialized product. This level of sophistication and user-centric design stood out in a field dominated by business process solutions.
“This accomplishment reflects Ashley’s commitment to innovation and her ability to master new technologies under intense time constraints,” said Eric Canada, managing partner at Blane Canada. “Her performance demonstrates that determination, strategic thinking, business experience, and user-focused design can compete with – and surpass – pure coding experience.”
Canada’s 9th-place finish represents a top 5.5% performance globally, a remarkable outcome for any participant, let alone a first-time competitor working with major disadvantages.
Canada’s success highlights the evolving landscape of technical innovation, where creative problem-solving, rapid learning capabilities, combined with business experience are proving extremely valuable. Blane Canada’s “business first” approach to AI and automation emphasizes combining business strategy with technical execution – an approach that resonates with business leaders.”
About Blane Canada
Blane Canada is a Wheaton, Illinois-based firm specializing in artificial intelligence and digital automation. Our “business first” approach to technology separates us from the typical AI tech-oriented firm. With a combined 40+ years of business, sales, and marketing experience, partners Eric and Ashley Canada deliver innovative strategies that help organizations navigate the intersection of business and technology.
Eric Canada
Blane Canada AI
email us here
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