Got a half-formed idea? You’ll have 4 hours to turn a vibe into a working product in this hackathon— designing, building, and shipping something AI-native.

Student and industry builders are both welcome. Zero experience required. Build with the HKN students, Berkeley community and connect with judges from Deepmind, YC companies and more!

WHAT TO EXPECT

Hosted by HKN and Butterai.org
4-hour build sprint at UC Berkeley
100+ selected builders: Berkeley students + vetted industry pros
Judges: engineers from DeepMind, Google Labs, Amazon · founders from YC companies
Multiple cash prizes from our sponsors, plus potential VC investment.

PROGRAM [Date] | Hack Day

2:50 PM — Doors open · Check-in & networking
3:10 PM — Kickoff: welcome + sponsor intros
3:30 PM — Hacking begins
5:30 PM — Dinner served · Build continues
6:30 PM — Submission deadline · Judging begins
7:00 PM — Top 10 live demos
8:30 PM — Judges deliberate
8:40 PM — Winners announced
9:00 PM — Closing networking

Teams of 1–4.

HOST HKN (Eta Kappa Nu) is the IEEE-affiliated honor society for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley — one of the most selective student organizations on campus, with alumni across leading AI labs, top tech companies, and venture-backed startups.

Build Smth AI-Native Hackathon @Cal