
Next Hackathon
Band of Agents Hackathon
Starts Jun 12, 2026
Join the next edition of our flagship AI hackathon — now featuring Google, AppliedAI, and Qdrant as official partners, with over $45,500 in prizes and exclusive partner challenges.
After an incredible launch earlier this year, we’re back with the next edition of our AI hackathon series leading up to the /function1 AI Conference & Exhibition in Dubai. Tap into the power of AI to innovate, build, and take your AI skills to the next level in this high-impact hybrid experience.
📅November 14–19, 2025
• Nov 14–18: Collaborate and build online with AI enthusiasts from around the world. All projects must be submitted by end of day on November 18
• Nov 18 (Dubai): An exclusive on-site build day at Festival Arena Dubai for selected participants.
• Nov 19 (Dubai): Live on-stage pitching & winners announcement at the /function1 Conference.
🌟 Get support from expert mentors throughout.
👥 Go solo or team up.
📍 Please note: On-site participation is by invitation only. Travel and accommodation will not be covered.
🧑🏻💻 Secure your spot now—sign up before the Kick-Off Stream!

Our AI hackathon brought together a diverse group of participants, who collaborated to develop a variety of impressive projects based on:
4841
Participants
602
Teams
259
AI Applications
This event has now ended, but you can still register for upcoming events on lablab.ai. We look forward to seeing you at the next one!
Check out Upcoming Events →
Media & Community partners
The future isn’t waiting - it’s being built.
Challenge Overview
This hackathon invites participants to go beyond the basics and develop impactful, real-world AI projects. Whether you're enhancing human productivity, solving complex industry problems, or reimagining creative workflows — this is your chance to build what’s next.
Industry & Technology partners' Challenges
Participants will have the opportunity to choose which partner’s technology they want to build with — unlocking unique opportunities to innovate and compete for exclusive prizes.
💡 Each partner challenge focuses on real-world applications of their technology, but participants are encouraged to bring their own bold ideas and creative implementations within that framework.
🔔 Partner challenges and resources will be shared before the hackathon kickoff — stay tuned for the full reveal!
How It Works
🔹Teams will decide which partner’s technology to use during the hackathon and build their project around it.
🔹Projects will be judged within that partner’s challenge category, with dedicated prizes and recognition for each partner’s top implementations.
📍 On November 18, selected participants will be invited to join an exclusive in-person build day at Festival Arena Dubai. This is a chance to collaborate face-to-face, make final improvements before the submission deadline, and connect with peers and mentors in a high-energy setting.
⚠️ On-site attendance is by invitation only. Travel and accommodation expenses are not covered.
Apply now to secure your spot!
Gemini is Google’s family of next-generation multimodal AI models capable of understanding and reasoning across text, images, code, video, and audio.
Google AI Studio is a browser-based environment where developers and creators can easily explore and prototype with Gemini models — test prompts, refine outputs, and experiment with different modalities before integrating them into real-world applications through the Gemini API.
Challenge:
Build with Gemini models and Google AI Studio to create AI-powered applications or agents that use multimodal intelligence to automate reasoning, enhance understanding, or streamline real-world workflows.
Access to Technology:
Participants can explore Gemini through two main options - both include free access:
🌐 Google AI Studio: A free, browser-based IDE for experimenting with Gemini. You can write prompts, test outputs, tweak parameters, and prototype without needing to set up billing or any API keys. Perfect for prototyping and rapid iteration during the hackathon.
💻 Gemini API: For developers ready to integrate Gemini directly into their apps. The free tier includes a monthly allowance of tokens for text and multimodal inputs/outputs, letting you test and build with Gemini’s core models at no cost. Paid usage only applies for higher-volume or production-level apps.
🚀 How to Get Started
1. Visit the Gemini Developer Hub
2. Follow the Quickstart Guide to explore Gemini in AI Studio
📘 Resources:
Opus is an AI-native workflow builder that turns plain-language prompts into executable workflows.
On a visual canvas, you drag‑and‑drop nodes for inputs/outputs, AI agents, human reviews, decisions, data connectors, REST calls, and custom Python to create your workflows.
Workflows can then be run as Jobs, which execute with logs, metrics, and tracing so your automations remain understandable, testable, and auditable.
✨ The Challenge
Design a reusable “Intake → Understand → Decide → Review → Deliver” automation that tackles the messy reality of multi‑format intake, mixed rule‑based + judgment decisions, and exception handling—while keeping every step traceable. Public/demo data and free external APIs are fine; enterprise integrations are not expected.
Want to stand out with your submission?
Check out the detailed challenge guidelines here.
🛠️ What You’ll Build
Create one end‑to‑end Opus workflow that tackles a real use case in an industry of your choice. Demonstrate it with realistic sample inputs.
Required building blocks:
• Data import & processing: Import from an external source (file, sheet, or public API) and make processed records available downstream.
• Decisioning & routing:
Combine deterministic rules (thresholds, required fields, format checks) with AI reasoning (categorization, summarization). Support multi‑condition logic, parallelize independent steps, and handle errors/timeouts sensibly.
• Review for quality & safety:
Include at least two checkpoints—Agentic Review (policy/guidance checks) and Human Review for low‑confidence or high‑impact cases.
• Provenance & audit:
Generate a compact audit artifact (JSON or PDF) capturing inputs, extracted fields + confidence, rules fired, scores/rationales, review actions, timestamps, IDs, and any external source URLs.
• Delivery: Export outcomes (e.g., via email or Google Sheets).
🧰 Technology You Can Use:
• No‑code: prompt‑to‑workflow generation and the visual canvas builder.
• Developers: Opus Code node (custom Python), External Service node (public APIs), and Data Import/Export for supported platforms; jobs can be triggered via API.
🔑 Access & Resources
Sign up for an Opus account and build directly in the visual canvas. New users get an in‑product onboarding, and the Help Center offers deeper guidance.
AppliedAI is giving every participant a coupon worth 50 man-hour credits on the Opus platform to help you build, test, and launch your workflow projects.
Promo code: LABLABX50
1. Go to Opus and create a new account.
2. On the signup screen, enter the code in the Referral Code field (available for email/password signup only).
3. If you sign up using Google or another provider, go to Organization Settings → Referrals & Partners and enter the code there.
4. Once applied, your account will receive 50 man-hour credits automatically.
Note: The promo code must be entered in ALL CAPS. It will not work if entered in sentence case.
Qdrant is an open-source vector search engine built for AI applications requiring efficient semantic search, retrieval, and recommendation. It enables developers to store, index, and query high-dimensional vector embeddings — powering intelligent systems that understand context and similarity beyond keywords.
Challenge:
Build an AI agent or application that uses Qdrant's vector search engine to power Search, Memory, and Recommendations over multimodal data (code, images, audio, video, etc.) to address a societal challenge.
Access to Technology:
Participants can use Qdrant Cloud or Local Installation, both available for free through the Qdrant documentation.
🚀 How to Get Started & Access Qdrant
Participants can deploy Qdrant either via the Qdrant Cloud or Locally — both free options.
Steps to Get Started:
📘 Resources:
We’re giving away 250 coupons — each with $20 in AI/ML API credits to supercharge your builds.
Promo code: 2GENAIDUB
Use this promo code at checkout to unlock a free subscription week with access to 100+ AI models across text, image, and vision tasks. ✨
With AI/ML API, you can tap into:
• Advanced language models for reasoning and creativity
• Multimodal models like LLaMA, Qwen, Flux and more
• A single API for all your AI needs
How to Redeem:
• Register on the AI/ML API website, choose the Startup plan, and enter the promo code.
• Access will be available for one week starting from the hackathon Kick-off.
• Monitor token usage — larger models are more costly per token, so for quick tests consider smaller ones before scaling.
• For the technical support, visit AI/ML API Discord.
• Please note that the AI/ML API is a subscription-based service. If you do not plan to continue using it after the
hackathon, please remember to cancel your subscription to avoid any charges.
• Credits are provided by AI/ML API and are subject to their delivery.
• Lablab is not responsible or liable if AI/ML API does not provide the credits.
• Please note that the AI/ML API is a subscription-based service. If you do not plan to continue using it after the hackathon, please remember to cancel your subscription to avoid any charges.
Surge is a multi-chain AI Native ICM launchpad where startups can raise early capital directly from the public, powered by lablab & NativelyAI. Based on $SURGE.
The token fueling decentralized AI native and Web3 startups. Built for builders and communities, and all chains.
Gemini AI by Google DeepMind is a powerful multimodal model built for intelligent, seamless performance across diverse platforms and devices.
AI/ML API provides advanced AI—text, image, and speech—with seamless integration, high performance, secure key management, and scalable deployment.
Opus is an enterprise automation platform that transforms workflows into AI-driven, human-supervised processes powered by AppliedAI’s Large Work Model (LWM).
Qdrant is a high-performance, open-source vector database for fast, scalable similarity search and hybrid semantic applications across diverse datasets.
Speakers:
Lara Shahin - AI Solutions Consultant & Mohamed Ibrahim -
AI Implementation Engineer
Topic: Opus Training | AI Genesis Hackathon 2025
Speaker: Thierry Damiba - Developer Advocate
Topic: An Introduction to Agentic Vector Search
Speaker: Sergey Nuzhnyy - Head of Developer Relations
Topic: How to activate the Promo
Promo Code: 2GENAIDUB
Speaker: Sergey Nuzhnyy - Head of Developer Relations
Topic: How to remove billing details
⭐Best use of Gemini
🥇 1st place - ☁️ $10,000 in GCP credits
🥈2nd place - ☁️ $10,000 in GCP credits
🥉3rd place - ☁️ $10,000 in GCP credits
⚠️ Disclaimer on $SURGE token: Surge Tokens ($SURGE) are NOT vested.
⭐Best Opus Workflow
🥇1st place - $3,000 in Cash, 1000 Man-Hour credits worth $1500
🥈2nd place - $2,000 in Cash, 500 Man-Hour credits worth $750
🥉3rd place - $1,000 in Cash, 300 Man-Hour credits worth $450
🏆Most Innovative use of Opus
🏆Most Auditable Opus Workflow
⭐Best use of Surge
🥇1st place - $2,500 in $SURGE Tokens + connection with the Surge team and a chance to be incubated/accelerated on the Surge platform
🥈2nd place - $250 in $SURGE Tokens
🥉3rd place - $250 in $SURGE Tokens
🏅 4th place - $250 in $SURGE Tokens
🏅 5th place - $250 in $SURGE Tokens
🏆First LinkedIn post with 200+ likes
🏆First tech YouTuber with 100k+ subscribers to feature the solution
⭐Best use of Qdrant:
🥇 1st place - $500 Apple Gift Card, Meta Ray-Ban Glasses (Gen 2), AirPods Pro (3rd Gen), Qdrant Swag
🥈2nd place - $250 Apple Gift Card, AirPods Pro (3rd Gen), Qdrant Swag
🥉3rd place - $100 Apple Gift Card, AirPods Pro (3rd Gen), Qdrant Swag
📋 Basic Information
• Project Title
• Short Description
• Long Description
• Technology & Category Tags
📸 Cover Image and Presentation
• Cover Image
• Video Presentation
• Slide Presentation
💻 App Hosting & Code Repository
• Public GitHub Repository
• Demo Application Platform
• Application URL
For further details and guidance, please visit Submission Guidelines
Join lablab.ai hackathon and innovate using the latest models in the market. Discover all the relevant details below.
The start date of the hackathon is mentioned according to the date specified on the hackathon page, cover and schedule. The hackathon will take place on the lablab.ai platform and lablab.ai Discord server.
Everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of previous AI or coding experience! We encourage anyone with a passion for AI or an interest in exploring how it can be used in their field to join.
If you don't have a team, don't worry! You can connect with other participants from all over the world on our dashboard or Discord server. We also recommend checking out our Discord server to find teammates and bounce around ideas. You can join the server here.
The hackathon will take place online on lablab.ai platform and lablab.ai Discord Server. Please register for both in order to participate. To participate click the "Enroll" button at the bottom of the page and read our Hackathon Guidelines and Getting Started Guide.
To get ready for the hackathon, visit our AI Tech pages and read up on all the available technologies. You can also check out our tutorials page for more information on how to use them. Get a head start on your project by using the resources on lablab.ai!
Submissions from the teams participating in the AI Genesis event and making it to the end 👊
Check out the roster and find teams to join

Next Hackathon
Band of Agents Hackathon
Starts Jun 12, 2026