MEGA Hackathon 2026
MEGA is a dynamic and diverse coalition of high school and college students from around the world, attending institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, Duke University, Georgia Institute of Technology, The University of Glasgow, Rutgers Preparatory School, Milton Academy, The Hun School of Princeton, The Lawrenceville School, and many more. With a shared commitment to fostering sustainable development and promoting global welfare, MEGA is proud to announce its upcoming hackathon, MEGA Hackathon 2026, which is slated to take place online on Saturday, Febuary 28, 2026, and Sunday, March 1st, 2026.
The hackathons within the past four years have been significantly successful, with participants submitting innovative projects that tackled some of the world's most pressing issues, including education, climate change, poverty, and inequality. You can check out the projects from all of our hackathons at https://devpost.com/hackathons?organization=MegaHackathonLeague and our website at https://megahack.org/.
| Time | Event |
| February 28th 8:00pm EST | Guest Speaker 1: Breaking the Silos: Building Interoperable Multi-Agent Systems with A2A and MCP |
| March 1st 2:00pm EST | Guest Speaker 2: Praneetha Kotla |
| March 1st 6pm EST | Guest Speaker 3: FIRST Tech Challenge Presentation |
Purpose
The MEGA Hackathon is a unique opportunity for computer science students to showcase their skills and creativity, while also contributing to the United Nations' seventeen sustainable development goals. By infusing computer science competitions with these goals, MEGA aims to raise awareness about pressing global issues and instill passion in the next generation of computer scientists.
MEGA's annual hackathon is an event that allows participants to collaborate and compete. This year, MEGA's hackathon will cater to a diverse range of interests and skill sets, with a variety of categories that include web development, data science, machine learning, and more.
The hackathon is open to students from all backgrounds, and there are no prerequisites for participation other than an interest in computer science and a desire to make a positive impact on the world. Participants will have the opportunity to work with mentors and industry professionals, as well as to network with other like-minded individuals from around the world.
Holistically, MEGA's annual hackathon is an exciting and impactful event that showcases the power of computer science to drive positive change in the world. We encourage all computer science students to join us for this year's event and help us make a difference!
Requirements
This hackathon is aimed towards students.
Before submitting your project, please fill out this registration form: Registration Form
The objective of this hackathon will be to apply STEM in projects that conform with the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (https://sdgs.un.org/goals).
This can be completed in the form of a business plan, game, application, or website. Regardless of which form of submission you choose, please submit a presentation or video describing your final product. If you wrote any code, please submit that too (preferably through a GitHub link).
There are also other awards that have secondary requirements such as the Wolfram Award and Business Innovator Award. To qualify for these awards, read the description of the prize to learn more about the requirements for these awards.
The prize values listed within every prize are the total cash values of the prizes listed. We are not offering actual cash prizes in this hackathon. Between 1 and 5 people can work on a single project.
Prizes
Gold Medal
This prize is for the most impressive, innovative, and impactful project.
-1-year subscriptions for NordVPN, NordPass, NordProtect and Incogni.
-1 GB of free data for Saily.
-3-month access and €200 credit for nexos.ai.
-$25 Art of Problem Solving Coupon (x2).
-$300 worth of Featherless Scale Plan
-$50 Interview Cake 7-Day
Silver Medal
This prize is for the second most impressive, innovative, and impactful project.
-$150 worth of Featherless Scale Plan
-$25 Art of Problem Solving Coupon
-$50 Interview Cake 7-DayInterview Cake Coding Interview Prep Course (1 per team member)
Bronze Medal
This prize is for the third most impressive, innovative, and impactful project.
-$75 worth of Featherless Scale Plan
-$50 Interview Cake 7-DayInterview Cake Coding Interview Prep Course (1 per team member)
-$25 Art of Problem Solving Coupon
Wolfram Award
This award is given to the projects that feature the Wolfram Language and are award-winning projects.
- $1660 1-year subscription of Wolfram|One
- $500 scholarship to Wolfram Summer Programs **if accepted**
Website Award
This prize is for the project with the best and most visually appealing website.
- $50 Interview Cake 7-Day Coding Interview Prep Course (1 per team member)
Business Innovator Award
This award is for the project with the best business plan.
- $50 Interview Cake 7-Day Coding Interview Prep Course (1 per team member)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Award
This award is for the project that best utilizes artificial intelligence to impact economics and infrastructure positively.
- $50 Interview Cake 7-Day Coding Interview Prep Course (1 per team member)
Gaming Award
This award is for the project that consists of the best game.
- $50 Interview Cake 7-Day Coding Interview Prep Course (1 per team member)
Participation Prize
- 6-month Wolfram|One subscription
- .xyz domain (1 year subscription)
- Featherless Inference access (during hackathon)
- Balsamiq 30-day extended free trial
- 200 API Units of Perfect's YouCam Online Editor
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Praneetha Kotla
Lead Robotic Process Automation Developer @ ERP Smartlabs
Surya Rao Rayarao
Lead Software Engineer @ SS&C Technologies
Karthik Jayaprakash
Senior Member of Technical Staff @ AMD
Alan Xiao Lin Zhu
Consultant @ Boston Consulting Group
Pratik Gupta
Senior Engineering Leader @ Stripe
Priyadarshni Natarajan
Technical Fellow @ Walmart
Sujit Singh
Software Engineer @ Google
Yue Cheng
Software Engineer @ Google
Sandeep Pal
Principal Member of Technical Staff (PMTS) @ Salesforce
Anna John
Senior Product Manager @ Zenafide
Victor Martins
Founder & Design Engineer @ Hiyr AI
Sanchee Kaushik
Senior Data Engineer @ CVS Health
Arun Pandiyan Perumal
Site Reliability Engineer @ Adobe Inc.
Shilen Jhaveri
Engineering Program Manager @ Google
Suresh Kumar Palus
Lead Software Engineer @ Paramount Streaming
Sai Teja Erukude
Data Scientist, Koch Ag & Energy Solutions
Koteswara Rao Chirumamilla
Lead data Engineer, Albertsons Companies
Anupama Gaddagimath
Senior Program Manager @ Microsoft
Snezana Zivcevska-Stalpers
Business and Technology Strategist, EAS Consultancy
Nirmal Jingar
Technology and AI Strategy Leader, Wayfair
Rahul Karne
Digital Forensics and Incident Response Analyst at American Airlines
Balaramakrishna Alti
AVP Systems Engineering, Moody’s
Saurabh Kumar
Senior Software Engineer @ Walmart Global Tech
Sowjanya Karri
Principal Technical Support Engineer @ Oracle America Inc
Rengaswamy Marimuthu
Senior Software Engineer @ Delivery Hero APAC
Riaz Ahmed Mohammed Sait
Principal Engineer @ Oracle Corporation, USA
Maulik Bhatt
Senior software engineer @ Amazon (AWS)
Balaji Salem Balasundram
Sr.Technical Account Manager @ Amazon Web Services Inc
Jagrati Bhardwaj
Software Engineer 2 @ Microsoft
Krishna Chaitanya Balusu
Senior Software Engineer @ Meta Platforms
Vishal Verma
Consulting Manager @ Deloitte Consulting LLP
Karthik Bojja
Senior Enterprise Software Engineer @ Wolters Kluwer
Sayarnil Banerjee
Solution Architect @ IBM
Pranav Pawar
Founding Engineer @ Kalos
Kriti Saxena
Sales Strategy and Operations @ Uber
Ishu Anand
Senior Engineering Leader @ Intuit
Naman Modi
MS Digital Marketing Student @ Cal Poly Pomona
Jen Agarwal
Senior Principal Product Manager @ Redis
Lien Hoang
Founder @ AgeTech for Vietnam
Jeel Tejaskumar Vaishnav
Software Engineer III @ Google
Muralikrishna Veeramosu
Principal Mobile Developer @ Fidelity Investments.
Manoj Aggarwal
Lead Software Engineer @ Docusign
Mahesh Soni
Senior Solutions Architect @ Nassau Financial Group
Manjiri Moghe
Staff Software Engineer @ Coinbase Inc
Yesha Patel
Senior Solution Architect @ IBM
Diogo Miguel Póvoa Perdigão
Battery Engineer @ EXOES
Laxmi Vanam
Data Specialist @ Vanguard
Aisya Aziz
CTO @ LiquiDonate
Mayank Agrawal
Software Engineer @ Meta
Kapil Kumar Sharma
Data Architect @ Cisco Systems
William Nafack
Senior Machine Learning Engineer @ JPMorgan Chase
Shubham Kulkarni
Senior Product Researcher and Designer @ JVC Group
Ravi Teja Reddy Mandala
Senior Site Reliability Engineer @ Oracle America Inc
Bhavya Lahari Bommireddy
Senior Software Engineer @ Microsoft Corporation
Christopher Lit
CTO @ Acephalt
Rahul Khurana
Tech Lead HRIS @ Kroger
Nuthan Prasad B N
Master Technologist @ Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Ruban Prabhu Selvaraj
Lead S/W Engineer @ Capital One
Ariel Yufei Cai
AI Experience @ Electronic Arts
Sarika Padmashali
Senior Full Development Engineer @ Adobe
Sriharsha Makineni
Senior Business Engineer @ Meta
Yuelin Ou
Data Engineer @ INTO University Partnerships
Jetashree Ravi
Technical Lead Manager @ Fireworks AI
Sprihanjay Banik
Machine Learning Engineer @ MrBeast
Manas Chaudhari
Software Engineer @ Meta
Vaibhav Jain
Senior Software Engineer @ Google
Mahendran Vasagam
Staff Software Engineer @ Salesforce
Sai Pravallika Myneni
Software Engineer @ CDW
Varun Garg
Engineer Manager @ Warner Bros. Discovery
Josh Trinh
Senior Security Engineer @BlueVoyant
Hari Prasad Badiginchala
Senior Systems Support Engineer
Pravin Barapatre
Software Engineer Manager @CarGurus
Manikarthik Konakalla
Software Development Manager @ Oracle
Naveen Kumar Puppala
Lead Architect @ Optum
Mohammed Majbah Uddin
Data Management Analyst III @ Clinical and Transactional Science Institute, University of Florida
Viresh Gehlawat
Staff Software Engineer @ Robinhood
Patrick Blumenthal
Investment Manager @ Ecosystem Ventures
Shalini Hasija
Senior Software Engineer @ Netflix
Saptadeep Debnath
Senior System Integration Engineer @ Horizon Surgical Systems
Rukshad Z Amaria
Lead Platform Engineering @ Prudential
Andy Austin
Founder and CEO @ Adsora
Suraj Balaso Desai
Data Scientist @ Digg
Akriti Bhat
Senior Software Engineer @ Meta
Aayush Dubey
Founding Engineer @ DataraAI
Krishna Madhuri Kompella
Software Engineer at Google
Judging Criteria
-
Innovative
Is this idea new? - Will this project contribute to economic growth or improved infrastructure? (5 points max) -
Technicality
Use of APIs, programs, and code in the project (if code was used) - How well was the idea implemented? (if code was used) - Is this concept possible to implement in the real world? (5 points max) -
Presentation
Is the information organized? - Is the concept understandable? (5 points max)
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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