About the challenge
Most AI products are built for people who are already fine. This hackathon is for everyone else.
Immigrants navigating a broken visa system. Families looking for affordable healthcare. Students figuring out how to fund their education. Newcomers trying to land in a country that wasn't built with them in mind.
You have two months to build. From day one, you get access to sponsor APIs and credits, mentorship from engineers at top AI labs, and a community that has produced 20% of US unicorn founders.
Anyone who submits gets to participate. The strongest teams will be invited to pitch live in Milpitas on August 21st in front of judges from across the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
After the pitches, there is a job fair. Sponsors and hiring teams will be in the room for conversations, introductions, and follow-on connections. If you are looking for your next role, a co-founder, or someone to take your project further, you will find them there.
Come ready to ship.
Eligibility: Open to participants above the legal age of majority in their country of residence. US only.
Get started
Getting from registered to building takes under 30 minutes.
- Register on Devpost Free. No fee. Click Register at the top of this page.
- Join the Open Atlas Slack An invite link is sent automatically after you register. Mentors hang out here, teammates find each other here, and sponsor API credits are distributed here.
- Find or form your team Anywhere from 1 to 5 people. Solo is fine. If you need teammates, post in the #team-formation channel with your skills and what you want to build.
- Pick a problem: Read the What to Build section below. Or bring your own idea. The open track is open.
- Claim your sponsor credits Credit codes for OpenAI, Anthropic, cloud providers, and dev tools are posted in #sponsor-credits.
- Start building Submissions open June 20th. The earlier you start, the more polished your demo will be.
Requirements
What to Build
Build an AI-powered solution that addresses a real social good problem. The theme is intentionally broad, Here are seven areas where AI can genuinely move the needle:
- Immigration and Mobility Tools that help immigrants navigate visa processes, credential recognition, settlement, and integration into US life. AI agents that explain immigration paperwork in plain language, credential translation tools for foreign-trained professionals, community matchmaking for new arrivals.
- Education and Opportunity Personalized learning, skills translation for foreign-trained professionals, accessibility tools, mentorship matching. GRE and GMAT prep adapted for non-native English speakers, AI tutors for first-generation college students, scholarship discovery agents.
- Financial Inclusion Credit access for newcomers, remittance optimization, fraud protection, financial literacy. Alternative credit scoring for thin-file immigrants, AI-driven remittance comparison, financial literacy chatbots in multiple languages.
- Career and Talent AI for workforce inclusion. Resume translation for foreign-trained workers, mock interview agents, AI-powered networking for underrepresented talent.
- Newcomer Settlement Tools that help newly arrived students and professionals land in the US. Housing search agents that understand visa constraints, logistics copilots for international students, neighborhood matching tools.
- Open Track Anything else that meaningfully uses AI to advance social good. Surprise us.
One thing to keep in mind: AI needs to be doing real work in your solution, not just a single API call wrapped in a UI. Judges will look for substantive use of LLMs, agents, RAG, vision, speech, or other AI techniques.
What to Submit
Every submission must be made through this Devpost page by August 20, 2026 at 5:00 PM PT. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Your submission must include:
Project Name Short, descriptive, memorable.
Elevator Pitch (2 to 3 sentences) What does it do? Who is it for?
Full Description
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The problem you are solving and who it affects
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How your solution works
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Which models, APIs, and frameworks you used and what they actually do
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What you built during the hackathon versus what existed before
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Your complete tech stack
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Challenges you ran into
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What is next for the project
Demo Video (3 minutes or under) Hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, public or unlisted. Must show the working product. Polish is not required. Clarity is.
Public Code Repository GitHub or GitLab link with a clear README including setup and usage instructions. If your repo is private, make sure judges have access.
Team Members All team members tagged on the Devpost submission with their roles.
Track Selection Pick the prize track or tracks you are submitting to. You can select multiple if your project qualifies.
Also helpful but not required:
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Screenshots or GIFs of the product in action
- A 3 to 5 slide pitch deck in PDF format
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A live demo URL if your project is deployed
Prizes
Best Immigration Solution
Complimentary O-1 Visa Filing — valued at $8,000
*T&C apply. Subject to law firm eligibility review.*
Best Education & Opportunity Hack — Presented by GoUpBroad
Complimentary US MS Admissions Package — valued at $2,000
(T&C Apply)
Best Career & Talent Hack — Presented by OpenHired
Free LinkedIn Premium — 1 Year
Best use of Render Workflows — Presented by Render
Qualifying projects must use Render Workflows.
1st place: $500 in Render credits (split by team)
2nd place: $300 in Render credits (split by team)
3rd place: $100 in Render credits (split by team)
1st Best Overall Hack — Presented by Supermemory
2nd Best Overall Hack — Presented by Supermemory
3rd Best Overall Hack — Presented by Supermemory
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Nikin Tharan
Helping high-skilled immigrants (O1, EB1A & EB5) | FINRA Registered Rep | O1 & EB1A Recipient
Rathnakumar (RK) Udayakumar
Founder, Open Atlas
Sohan Sethi
Data Analytics Manager @ HCSC Co-founded 2 Startups By 20 | Featured on TEDx, CNBC
Anjali Nair
Senior Manager, Product Marketing
Anushk Sharma
Growth lead, Open Atlas
Veeraj Gadda
Solutions Manager @PayPal
Srinivasan Jayaraman
Lead Architect, Granular Data Initiatives at Autodesk
Venkata Sesha Sai Praveen Tunikuntla
Senior Manager Software Engineering @ Walmart eCommerce
Sachin Gupta
UHY LLP, Certified Public Accountants
Nisarg Patel
Software Engineer at Tesla
Srivardhan Jalan
Engineering Leader @ Meta
Razikh Ulla
Product Leader | AI/ML Infrastructure & Agentic Platforms | Ph.D. AI | Ex-Meta, Cisco, Nokia
Voolla Sandeep Kumar
Senior Member Of Technical Staff at Salesforce
Sanil Almeida
CyberSecurity at Visa - CPTE | CEH | MSc Security | CHFI
Maheen Hassan
AI Product Manager, Global Pathways AI
Mohd Farhan Ansari
CEO & Recruiter, Global Pathways AI
Shivesh Sood
AI Product @ HBS Foundry
Tanvi Tayal
Principal HRBP, Amazon Devices
Sweta Gupta
Senior Product Manager @ Walmart
Satish Kathiriya
Senior Software Engineer @OCI
Prasanna AP
Research Engoneer @ Supermemory
Shardul Mane
Founding Growth Lead @ Supermemory
Dhravya Shah
Founder @ Supermemory
Vinod Kumar Thottempudi
Cyber Security Engineer
Naga Malladi
Senior Technical Product Manager @ Microsoft
Anshul Chetal
EY-IBM Consulting Global Alliance Leader @ IBM
Atul Thapliyal
Senior Managing Consultant @ IBM
Anantha Prakash Nithiyanantham
Technical Lead @ TikTok USDS
Anandhakumar Kaluvakolli
Sr System Architect @ Synergy Software Solutions LLC
Nambi Sivathiravia Perumal Vasagam
Cloud Architect @ Tata Consultancy Services
Nithin Subba Rao
Senior Manager of manufacturing excellence @Saargummi Tennessee Inc
Justin Rajakumar Maria Thason
DevOps Senior Technical Director (Manager) Consultant @ CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Antara
Cloud Data Engineer @ Blue.cloud
Pavankumar Dhani Reddy
Data and Strategy Associate @ Washington State University
Sudarshan Venkatraman
Principal Engineering Manager @ Microsoft Corporation
Qifan (Amber) Shi
AI Product Leader at Manifest OS.
Narayan Pharkya
Founder @ TransferX
Shabina Sherif
Lead AI Product Manager @ Optum
Judging Criteria
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Four equally-weighted criteria (25% each):
Impact, Creativity & Originality, Technical Execution and Feasibility each 25%
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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