Data4Good 2026 is a 36-hour hackathon at UC Santa Barbara bringing together innovators, coders, and data enthusiasts to craft impactful solutions powered by data. Over an action-packed weekend, participants will collaborate, compete, and learn, developing projects that tackle real-world, open-ended challenges while diving into the latest advancements in data science, AI, and technology.
Please register to attend through our website https://datathon.datascienceucsb.org/.
NOTE: All U.S. college students are welcome to attend Data4Good; however, travel and accommodation expenses will not be covered or arranged.
Requirements
- Record a 5 minute presentation with a project overview. You should discuss:
- Your data
- Project inspiration
- What methods did you use? How did you explore the data?
- Findings and results
- Any presentations longer than 5 minutes will be penalized.
- Provide a link to your GitHub, including all of your original code.
- Create a submission on this DevPost.
All projects must be started on Saturday, 2/21 and submitted by Sunday, 2/22 at 5PM PST. Late submissions will not be considered.
Prizes
Best Overall
Best Data Visualization
Best Computer Vision Solution
Track 1: Public Health & Wellbeing
Track 2: Education & Digital Equity
Track 3: Environmental Sustainability
Track 4: Civic Engagement & Policy
Best Use of RapidFire AI
Best Use of Data from Live Data Technologies
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Rupesh Dabbir
Engineering Manager, Google
Andy Austin
Founder & CEO at Adsora
Puja Pandey
Uma Ravat
Tomoyuki Ichiba
Andres Malovos
Director of Customer Success at Live Data Technologies
Ryan O'Leary
CPTO at Live Data Technologies
Sang-Yun Oh
Tianyu Zhang
Laurel Abowd
NCEAS
Judging Criteria
-
Technical
Did the team use appropriate models/tools for the problem, with sound assumptions and evaluation? -
Execution
How finished is the project? Does it run, include a working demo/prototype, and show results or evaluation? -
Impact
How well does the project address its given problem, and is it suitable for the track? Is it realistic/actionable? -
Presentation
How clearly does the team communicate their approach and results? How engaging is the presentation (visuals, structure, speaking)? -
Creativity
How unique, novel, ambitious, or creative is the team’s solution?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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