The Triangle AI Hackathon (formerly the Duke AI Hackathon) is a weekend-long, in-person hackathon for students to build with AI in a friendly and fun environment, hosted by Duke Engineering. This year we're opening it up to students from all NC universities. No prior hackathon (or even coding) experience required.

Prepare for a hands-on AI hackathon where you'll go beyond just coding—you'll build a full-fledged application that integrates AI to solve real-world problems. Your deliverable is not just a model, but an application in action.

Register at our registration form. View the full schedule, tracks and FAQ at triangle-ai-hackathon-site.vercel.app.

Participating teams receive

  • $120 credits from Thinking Machines
  • $100 credits from Google Cloud
  • Education sessions and mentoring
  • Free food, snacks and drinks throughout

Objectives

To provide a hands-on experiential learning opportunity for college students in building new-to-the-world AI-powered software products. To foster a climate of entrepreneurship among college students, encouraging them to consider technical entrepreneurship as a career pathway.

Eligibility

Open to students from all NC universities (undergraduate and beyond), of any major, with and without technical experience. All teams must be in person for both the event kick-off (Friday, Nov 6) and judging (Sunday, Nov 8) in the Wilkinson Building on the Duke campus. Teams can include up to 4 students.

Use your AI model and build the application

Start by developing and training your AI model, or use an off-the-shelf model, to solve the problem you've identified. Once your model is ready, integrate it into your application. This could be a mobile app, a web app, a command-line tool, or any other format that effectively showcases your AI solution in action. Focus on creating a seamless experience where the AI model enhances the application's functionality.

Requirements

What to Build

Any kind of application that leverages AI to solve a problem in one of the 6 tracks. Pick a technical track to go deep on a hard problem, or an industry track to solve for a specific audience.

Technical tracks

  • Robotics: build with sensors, actuators, and control systems; anything that senses or moves in the physical world.
  • Computer Vision: build with images, video, or camera input; detection, tracking, generation, anything that reads the visual world.

Industry tracks

  • Health & Wellness: mental health, physical fitness, or clinical tools.
  • Social Impact & Education: change how people learn or how communities solve shared problems.
  • Finance, Enterprise & Tech: tools that help a business run better; ops, analytics, workflow automation, fintech.
  • Entertainment, Media & Arts: creative tools and new formats that change how people make or experience art.

Your submission should make clear the problem, solution, tech stack (use of AI in particular), challenges you ran into, accomplishments you are proud of, and what you learned. Feel free to include images/videos to help explain your product. Submissions will be reviewed by the judges.

What to Submit

  • Link to your GitHub repository, well documented, clearly explaining the problem you're solving, why you're solving it, and the technology you're using in detail
  • Screenshots / product demo (preferred) of your application

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

9 non-cash prizes
First Place
1 winner

$600 gift card sponsored by Bloom AI; 1:1 pitch and advising session with 1616 Ventures; $500/person credits from Thinking Machines

Second Place
1 winner

$300 gift card sponsored by Bloom AI; $250/person credits from Thinking Machines

Third Place
1 winner

$100 gift card sponsored by Bloom AI; $100/person credits from Thinking Machines

Finance, Enterprise & Tech Track Winner
1 winner

Codex Plus: a one-year subscription for each team member, sponsored by Unlimited AI

Health & Wellness Track Winner
1 winner

$200 gift card sponsored by SteamedClaw.ai

Robotics Track Winner
1 winner

1:1 pitch and advising session with Althing Ventures

Social Impact & Education Track Winner
1 winner

$200 gift card sponsored by Entrinsik

Entertainment, Media & Arts Track Winner
1 winner

$200 gift card sponsored by DecorX

Entrinsik Challenge: Best Use of Informer Apps
1 winner

$800 gift card sponsored by Entrinsik Informer Apps

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Triangle-based investors and entrepreneurs

Triangle-based investors and entrepreneurs

Judging Criteria

  • Technical
    How technically sophisticated is the project, in terms of the AI, software, and hardware (if applicable) employed? Scored 1–7: 1 = very poor, 4 = average, 7 = truly exceptional.
  • Novelty
    How creative, unique, and differentiated from existing solutions is the team's project? Scored 1–7: 1 = very poor, 4 = average, 7 = truly exceptional.
  • Value Proposition
    Does the team's project satisfy a clear, compelling, and important need or purpose? Scored 1–7: 1 = very poor, 4 = average, 7 = truly exceptional.
  • Presentation
    Does the team have a clear and professional pitch and presentation of their work? Scored 1–3: 1 = unprofessional, 2 = acceptable (average), 3 = outstanding.

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Invite others to compete

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.