Friday, October 17 – Sunday, October 19, 2025

• Friday, Oct 17 – Kickoff, team formation

• Saturday, Oct 18 – Full-day building & mentorship

• Sunday, Oct 19 – Project submissions, demos, judging, awards

• In-person only: at least one team member must attend on-site.

• Open to developers, founders, students, and enterprise professionals.

• Team size: 2–6 people recommended.

• Must be able to demo live on Sunday.

All submissions must be made through Devpost by the deadline.

Each project must include:

• Project summary (problem + solution, 1–2 paragraphs)

• Technical overview (how it works, 1–2 paragraphs)

• Demo video (3–5 minutes) or live demo

• Screenshots/visuals showing the project in action

• Public repo link tagged proving-ground with setup instructions in a README

Teams must declare their track:

• Discovery Track (new project)

• Startup Track (existing MVP + new feature built during the sprint)

​Winners and select founders will receive an exclusive invitation to receive 1:1 feedback from Snowflake Ventures and VC partners. Eligible winners will also gain priority consideration for Snowflake’s Startup Accelerator. All participants will get 15% off their first Snowflake contract to accelerate their data and AI journey!

• Track 1 (Discovery): 1st / 2nd / 3rd Place

• Track 2 (Startup): 1st / 2nd / 3rd Place

• Special sponsor awards: TBD

Projects at Proving Ground are evaluated on three core dimensions:

• PULL: Customer — Is the problem clear and important to real users?
  
  
• MOMENTUM: Tech & Execution — Is the solution technically real, thoughtfully designed, and built during the Sprint? (did you ship a feature or MVP)
  
  
• TEAM FIT: Domain — Do the founders bring unique insight or expertise into the space?
  
  

👉 Judges are looking for proof, not polish — the goal is to see what’s real in 72 hours.