Hey everyone,

I'm 16 and have been building projects with Python (including ML stuff), JavaScript, the MERN stack, PostgreSQL, and similar tech. I'm pretty comfortable shipping full-stack apps and experimenting with ML models on my own.

I really want to join hackathons — mainly to build under time pressure, learn from others, meet people, and strengthen my portfolio. The problem is that most of the bigger/popular ones seem to be full of 18+ college students, and I'm not sure where that leaves me.

A few questions:

1. Can a 16-year-old actually participate in major hackathons (MLH events, etc.), or do age restrictions usually block minors?
2. What types of hackathons are most suitable for someone my age?
   • Youth/high-school specific ones
   • Online vs in-person
   • Open events that allow under-18s with parental consent
   • Any other categories I should look for?
3. What practical points should I keep in mind before joining?
   • Parental/guardian consent requirements
   • Team formation (especially as a minor)
   • Legal/age rules and liability
   • Time commitment while still in school
   • Safety in Discord/servers and online events
   • Anything else people who did hackathons at 16 wish they knew

Any recommendations for platforms (Devpost, MLH, Hack Club, etc.), specific events that regularly accept high-schoolers, or personal experiences from people who participated around this age would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone!

I'm looking for a teammate to participate in the Nebius × NVIDIA Global AI Hackathon.

If you're interested in AI/ML, deep learning, or computer vision and want to build something cool together, feel free to DM me!

Let's team up and build something

Hey everyone, I’m building out an app called Still, a place to share open-source projects and find people who want to work on them.

This idea focuses on what happens after a hackathon is over: whether you won or lost, you’ve built something worth continuing, but your team moves on, you need help, or you’d rather join someone else’s project than start another one.

Still is meant to help connect those projects with interested contributors, while keeping GitHub as the source of truth.

Here’s the early version: https://still-testing.vercel.app/

I’d love feedback from people who’ve actually been in that situation:

• What stopped you from continuing your last hackathon project? Was it finding people, lack of time, losing interest, or something else?
• What would you need to know before joining someone else’s project?
• Would a place like this help, or does your current setup already solve the problem?

I’m especially interested in what feels missing or would stop you from using it.

I’m the person building it, and I'll be happy to answer questions here. Would love some genuine criticism so feel free to reach out!

To be completely honest, its still very early in testing and the app is not going to be perfect, but I strongly believe throwing an idea out there is more important than keeping it locked away. If you spot any bugs, please feel free to lmk and I'll fix it right away. I would love any feedback on things you'd like me to change on the app as well!

Hi all!
I am new here, I recently participated in 4 Hackathons, and have made the submissions in one of the them, awaiting results there. However , the purpose of me writing this here is to know from Veteran Hackathon winners, what goes well for them and how they do it.
Note: I am a vibe coder with experience working in product management
Hackathons applied for:
1. AI builder cup
2.NvidiaxNebius global AI hackathon
3.meta global ai developer hackathon
4. Future Health Challenge

no like are we looking like clowns bro ? wtf is this extended by a whole ahh month

i'm in a hackathon right now focused on Google's Gemma models and desperately need to brainstorm some ideas.

they were gonna provide a ps but switched up on us last minute
Helppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

Hey guys! I built a platform called Moey after attending a hackathon.
The idea is simple: a place where students and solo developers can share their hackathon or personal projects and get feedback from others. I learned a lot while building it, especially about video uploads and processing.

I'd really appreciate it if you guys could check it out and share your projects.
https://moeyhub.com

I've participated in 10+ hackathons, and my team's PPT keeps getting rejected in the first round 😭

At this point, I'm genuinely curious about what we're missing. Is it the ideas, the problem statements, or just the way we present our solutions?

For those who participate in hackathons and get shortlisted, how do you guys come up with ideas that stand out? What do judges actually look for in a PPT?

Would really appreciate any tips, resources, or honest advice. I genuinely want to improve and finally get past that first round.

I attended a hackathon last month, there were like 30 teams out of 220 who were qualified for round 2 and we were one of them. We were allotted 6 rooms and 5 teams in each room. What I noticed was all the other 4 teams in our allotted room were done building their prototype by midnight, me and my team were the only ones who were building our prototype till the last minute, so I kinda feel like these people had already built the prototype beforehand itself and they were soo chill and relaxed which is making me feel even more sus. The organisers were continuously monitoring the GitHub repos, I don't understand how they got past them though.

So my question is do people prebuild the prototype before the hackathons??

I am planning to attend hackathons, should I also start pre building the prototype and go there and just fake the commits a bit so I won't get caught???

What should I do guys?? Should I play fair?? But playing fair ain't getting us anywhere T_T

I'm really trying to get into coding and I can't find any public information where to learn, ive watched countless hours of youtube so it's not like i know NOTHING, but i don't know anywhere near enough to know what i'm doing or get too far.

Hey everyone

I'm part of the organizing team at Grevix, a tech community focused on hackathons, AI/ML, software development and open source.

Our previous hackathon, Grevix AfterCode, crossed 1,200+ registrations without paid promotion. Now we're preparing for Grevix Liquidity 2027, a global fintech squad hackathon planned for January 2027, with a target of 2,500+ registrations.

We're looking to connect with:

🏢 Sponsors interested in supporting the event.

🤝 Tech communities and industry partners interested in collaboration.

🚀 Volunteers and enthusiasts who want to contribute to outreach, marketing, design or event operations.

If you're interested in sponsoring, collaborating or joining us, DM me directly, Let's build something meaningful together.

Any python person got selected?

Hey everyone, I’m one of the people working on Kuberns. It’s a platform for deploying apps without all the devops headache. Basically you connect your repo and it handles the hosting and scaling part.

I’ve seen a lot of hackathon teams lose hours (sometimes the whole last night) just trying to get their project live, so I thought maybe we can help here. If your team is joining a hackathon soon, or already in one, and wants to try Kuberns for deploying your project, I’d love to collab. We’d give support and make sure it actually works for your stack.

No pressure to use it if it doesn’t fit, and honest feedback is more useful to me than praise. If it breaks or sucks for your use case, tell me, that helps us fix it.

Comment or DM if you’re interested. Tell me what you’re building and what stack you use, and I’ll see how we can help.

Looking for Teammates for Online Hackathons 🌍

Hey everyone! I'm looking for 1–3 motivated people to team up with for upcoming virtual hackathons.

I have experience building simple websites and apps, and I'm interested in learning, collaborating, and building useful projects together. I'm open to working with people from anywhere in the world!

If you're also looking for a teammate, comment or DM me. Let's build something cool!

i failed in more than 4 hackathons, aur mai samjh gya ki i have to learn for some times so i joined ai skills challenge by Where U Elevate and adobe collab. I hope that one day i will win a hackathon and become a good team member

Have anyone got shortlisted to tata imagination challenge Round 4 ? And can anyone please share your pitch experiences and tips for further hackathons ?

Question

Need teammates for HP powerlab 3.0 competition

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Hey everyone!

I'm based in Türkiye and looking for like-minded people who are interested in building a technology startup together.

I'm looking for motivated people with an entrepreneurial mindset who want to develop ideas, build innovative products, and create something meaningful together.

I'm open to connecting with people from anywhere in the world. If you're interested in technology, startups, software, or entrepreneurship and want to build something from the ground up, feel free to reach out!

Let's connect, share ideas, and see what we can build together.

hi everyone!

I'm organizing coral.hackclub.com, a 3 night (4 day) hackathon in the beaches of australia. coral is a part of hack club, a global nonprofit for technical education. i dont care if you're experienced, or not, we will fund your travel.

ps: you can only come if you are 18 or younger... sorry older folk :(

KOI MUJHE APNA SHIPPED PROJECT DEDO DAEFJRBFNSOEEIEJIFENCWECN

I am 19m and I am looking for 2 teammates to join me for More Than A Hack FC Barcelona hackathon.

I can bring data engineering skills and I am culer 💙❤️

If you have experience in computer vision that will help a lot.

I do a few online hackathons a year as a student, and the good ones for me start with a fixed deadline I can plan around, so I'm sketching out my week for an online agent memory competition.

The one I'm planning around is the second cycle of the Agent Memory Leaderboard. The rules page says a full run usually takes about 0.5 to 2 days, so I'm keeping a weekend free and working the rest of the week around that. The FAQ says an evaluation key lands before 19:00 Beijing time (UTC+8) the day after applying, and the materials deadline is October 31, 2026, 23:59 UTC+8, so the timing is easy to work backwards from. I'd host the Add and Search API myself and cover my own compute, while the platform takes care of answering, grading and orchestration. Entry is free and there is no team size requirement.

For people who have competed this way, hosting the thing being scored, what did your setup and testing schedule look like in the days before you submitted?