The GenAI Zürich Hackathon 2026 is an applied Generative AI hackathon tackling real-world industry and impact challenges — proposed by partner organizations or the hack teams themselves.
Join the GenAI Zürich Hackathon 2026 – 2 weeks remote build, 2 days to validate with participants and experts at Europe’s leading applied GenAI conference.
📅 Phase 1: Online Build
2 March, 12:00 - 18 March, 12:00
- Hackers register and form teams on Devpost
- 2 March: Challenges are released
- Teams work remotely on their solutions (partner challenges or own ideas)
- 18 March: Prototypes are submitted
- A jury reviews all submissions and selects a shortlist until 25 March to advance to the on-site hack phase
Phase 2: On-site Hack
1 April, 13:00 - 2 April, 13:00
- Shortlisted teams receive full conference passes for all team members
- 1 April: Science-fair-style mentoring and community feedback on-site
- Prototype solution refinement
- 2 April: Final project submissions and judging, 10 finalist pitches on stage, prize-giving ceremony
👥 Who Should Participate?
Open to builders, thinkers, and doers.Developers & Engineers – Build with LLMs, agents, RAG, and multimodal AI
Product & Business Minds – Shape solutions with real market potential
Designers & Creatives – Craft experiences that make AI accessible
Domain Experts – Bring industry knowledge to applied challenges
Note: Solo participants or teams (max. 5 members). Mixed technical and non-technical backgrounds encouraged.
Requirements
What to submit?
18 March, 12:00: Online phase
Prototype (Public Repo URL with source code) + Onepager +
optional: Demo Video (1 min), team photo
(Use .zip in case you want to submit several files)
The given project structure here on Devpost acts as the Onepager:
-Inspiration
-What it does
-How we built it
-Challenges we ran into
-Accomplishments that we're proud of
-What we learned
-What's next for Winning project
-Built With
2 April, 13:00: On-site phase (Zurich)
Prototype (Repo, source code) + Project Landing page + slides + video + team photo
(Use .zip in case you want to submit several files; check for challenge specific requirements)
Challenges
The GenAI Zürich Hackathon 2026 invites to hack 7 real-world challenges from Apify, GoCalma, LIVEMAP, Manukai, Qdrant, Siemens and SonyAI.
Check the Challenges overview: https://notion.genaizurich.ch/hackathon-challenges
Prizes
GenAI Hack Winner
Cash Prize
(5,000 CHF)
+ 1 year Pro subscription for Lovable platform
+ 1,000 $ Hugging Face credit
+ Coaching Session with Databricks AI Architects
+ 3 months unlimited plan from Edit with Ava
GenAI Hack 2nd place
Cash Prize (3,500 CHF)
+ 1 year Pro subscription for Lovable platform
+ 500 $ Hugging Face credit
+ 3 months unlimited plan from Edit with Ava
GenAI Hack 3rd place
Cash Prize (1,500 CHF)
+ 1 year Pro subscription for Lovable platform
+ 100 $ Hugging Face credit
+ 3 months unlimited plan from Edit with Ava
Apify Challenge Winner
Cash Prize (1,500 $)
+ 1,000 $ Apify credits
Apify Challenge 2nd place
Cash Prize (1,000 $)
+ 1,000 $ Apify credits
Apify Challenge 3rd place
Cash Prize (500 $)
+ 500 $ Apify credits
Qdrant Challenge Winner
1,500 $ Qdrant cloud credits + some cool swag
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Sabine Wildemann
President aiLights, Co-Initiator Swiss {ai} Weeks
Ruggiero Dargenio
Co-Founder GenAI Zürich
Dr. Dr. Christian Hugo Hoffmann
Director AI Startup Center
Isabel Steiner
CTO Migros Online
Michael Wegmüller
Co-Founder Artifact
Daniel Naeff
Head of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, ETH AI Center
Olivier Cornet
CEO Livemap
Patricia Ferreiro
Advisor, Digital Natives & Scale-Ups Databricks
Dino Causevic
Swiss Engineering, Head Production, Space and Avionics
Chadha Sridi
Devrel Engineer Qdrant
Dušan Vystrčil (Apify Award)
Apify
Judging Criteria
-
Innovation and technical quality
-
Effective Use of Generative AI
-
Business / Societal Value
-
Feasibility & Scalability
-
Pitch & Presentation Quality
Applicable for shortlisted team at on-site hack
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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