2026 Innovation
Hackathon
One hundred builders. One week. Live demos at the end of it.
The next hour.
- 8:00 PM01Debrief on the week
- 8:15 PM02How to form teams
- 8:35 PM03Google Cloud credits
- 8:50 PM04Sponsors
- 8:55 PM05Q&A
Six days to ship.
- Mon May 19Kickoff — tracks revealed, clock starts
- Tue – SatBuild week — work anywhere, anytime
- Sun May 24Submissions close — 11:59 PM ET
- Tue May 26Demo night — 5:30 PM at 510 Front St W
Tracks are announced tonight. Solo builders are welcome — teams of up to 5. Submit a working demo link by Sunday 11:59 PM.
How to form teams.
Teams of 1–5. Pick your track, find collaborators, and start building tonight.
Head to #hackathon-teams. Introduce yourself, share your skills, and find people to build with.
Answer a few questions about what you do and what kind of team you want. We'll match you by tomorrow.
Lock your team tonight
Decide on your track and team before the kickoff ends.
Free cloud credits.
Every registered builder gets Google Cloud credits to use during the hackathon. Submit the Gmail address you want the credits added to.
Scan the left QR — submit the Gmail you want credits on. One response per person.
Scan the right QR — go to trygcp.dev/claim/makerslounge to redeem directly.
Credits will be applied before build week starts.
How to claim, step by step.
Enable your APIs.
Setting up Pingram.
Submitting your project.
All projects must be submitted by Sunday, May 25 at 11:59 PM EDT.
Scan the QR code or open the link below.
Submit your project link — GitHub, Loom, deployed app, or demo URL.
We'll blast the submission link on Luma and Discord tonight.
The Venue.
510 Front St W, Suite 200
Toronto, ON · Tue May 26
Enter through the main lobby on Front St W. Take the elevator to the 4th floor.
Doors open at 5:30 PM. Food available. Demos start at 6:30 PM sharp.
Closest transit: Union Station (15 min walk west) or King streetcar (504).
510 Front St W
The night.
Pick a track. Ship in a week.
Validating a Business Idea
Innovation teams collect thousands of ideas every year, far more than they can evaluate. Build an AI agent or tool that streamlines the innovation pipeline from raw idea to commercialized product.
Judging criteria
- End-to-end pipeline coverage25%
Handles the full journey from idea intake through evaluation, prioritization, and output — not just one step of the funnel.
- Quality of scoring / triage logic35%
The AI's ranking methodology is defensible, consistent, and meaningfully better than gut-feel. Handles nuanced, similar ideas differently.
- Speed & scalability over manual review25%
Demonstrates a credible reduction in time or cost vs. a human team reviewing the same volume of ideas.
- Demo clarity15%
A non-technical stakeholder understands the value proposition and how to use the tool within 5 minutes.
Continuous Market Monitoring
The business landscape is changing fast, and separating signal from noise has become critical. Build an agentic AI tool or platform that continuously monitors the market for signals relevant to a company's innovation function.
Judging criteria
- Signal relevance & accuracy35%
Surfaces signals genuinely useful to an innovation team — not just news summaries. Filters noise and avoids false positives.
- Real-time or near-real-time capability25%
Data freshness matters. The platform detects and surfaces new signals quickly; latency is minimized and made transparent.
- Actionability of insights surfaced25%
Insights are specific enough to act on. Not just 'AI is growing' — but what an innovation team should do differently because of it.
- Demo clarity15%
A non-technical stakeholder understands the value proposition and how to use the tool within 5 minutes.
Synthetic Customers
Real customer studies are slow, expensive, and often fail to surface what customers actually want. Build an AI tool or platform that simulates synthetic customer feedback on new product ideas.
Judging criteria
- Fidelity of synthetic feedback35%
Simulated customers behave and respond like real market segments. Feedback is nuanced, not generic — accounts for edge cases and varied personas.
- Non-obvious insight generation25%
Surfaces things traditional surveys often miss: minority opinions, contradictions between stated and revealed preferences, unexpected objections.
- Time & cost savings vs. real research25%
Makes a credible case for replacing or meaningfully augmenting traditional customer research — speed, cost, or breadth of coverage.
- Demo clarity15%
A non-technical stakeholder understands the value proposition and how to use the tool within 5 minutes.
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Our judges.
Judges from some of the largest enterprises in Canada and globally.
And others.
Our sponsors.
Toronto's biggest innovation hackathon.
We're bringing 100 of the best AI builders in the city together to compete across multiple challenge tracks, with industry leaders judging live.
Three parts.
- Part 1
Kickoff Night
Mon May 19, 8:00 PM · Online
Challenge tracks are revealed, teams form, the clock starts. Solo builders are welcome.
- Part 2
Build week
May 19 to May 24 · Anywhere
Six days to build something real. Submit by Sunday May 24, 11:59 PM.
- Part 3
Demo night
Tue May 26, 5:30 PM · 510 Front St W, Suite 200
Come back and present what you built. Judges evaluate live. Winners announced on the night.
Tuesday May 26.
- 5:30 PMArrivalNow
- 6:00 PMFood, meet your teamto 6:30 PM
- 6:30 PMLive demosto 7:30 PM
- 7:30 PMJudges deliberateto 8:00 PM
- 8:00 PMWinners + connectto 8:30 PM
People who ship, judging live.
Announced in the weeks before May 26.
Prizes.
Announced in the weeks before May 26. Bragging rights are guaranteed.
Founders, engineers, designers, makers.
Hands-on AI experience. Able to ship something real in a week. Solo or in a team. Spots are strictly limited to 100.
Industry leaders and innovators.
We reach out directly. If you'd like to nominate someone, message us in the Discord.
Find your team in the Discord.
discord.com/invite/PBgbuw5vThe AI Collective is a global non-profit uniting 150,000+ leaders, builders, and stakeholders. Participating as a community partner only.
Toronto Tech Week 2026, May 25 to 29. A citywide celebration of the people building what's next, with hundreds of community-led events.
Build kindly. Ship boldly. Credit fully.
Attendees and organizers at events affiliated with The AI Collective agree to its code of conduct. Be the room you want to be in.
Solo? Find a team.
Drop your name, your background, and what you want in a teammate. We'll match you with other solo builders before kickoff.
Get matchedSubmit your project.
One link is all that's required. Add a title, a description, a video, files, your team — whatever helps judges understand what you built.
Open the link or scan the QR code.
Paste your project link — GitHub, Loom, deployed app, demo URL.
Add your team, track, and any supporting files.
Submit before Sunday May 25, 11:59 PM EDT.
Lock in your spot.
100 spots. First come, host approval required. If you don't get in this time, keep applying.