Dates

JacHacks runs from Saturday, April 4, 2026 at 11:00 AM ET (hacking begins) to Sunday, April 5, 2026 at 11:00 AM ET (submissions close). That's 24 hours of building time. Check-in starts at 8:30 AM and the opening ceremony runs from 10:00–11:00 AM on Saturday.

Eligibility

  • Open to all university students (undergraduate and graduate) and recent graduates (within 12 months of graduation)
  • Teams of 1 to 4 people. You can form teams before the event or find teammates at the hackathon
  • All team members must be registered on Devpost and checked in at the event
  • This is an in-person hackathon. You must be physically present in Ann Arbor to participate and be eligible for prizes

Project and Submission Requirements

  • All code must be written during the hackathon. Pre-existing projects, boilerplate repos, or previously started work are not allowed. Using open-source libraries, packages, and public APIs is fine
  • Projects should meaningfully use Jac and/or Jaseci. Judges will weigh Jac usage heavily in scoring. Projects that don't use any Jac at all will be at a significant disadvantage
  • Each project may only be submitted to one track
  • All submissions must include a working demo (live, recorded, or runnable locally), source code on GitHub, and a Devpost project page
  • Projects must be submitted on Devpost by 11:00 AM ET on Sunday, April 5

Prizes

$10,000+ in total prizes across all tracks and special awards. Detailed prize breakdowns for each track and sponsor-specific awards will be announced at the opening ceremony.

Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Projects will be evaluated on:

  • Technical Execution (30%) — Does it work? How well is it built? Is the code clean and the architecture sound?
  • Use of Jac/Jaseci (25%) — How deeply does the project leverage Jac's unique features? Projects that take advantage of by llm(), walkers, graph-native patterns, and single-file full-stack development will score higher
  • Creativity and Innovation (20%) — Is this a fresh idea? Does it solve a real problem in a way we haven't seen before?
  • Impact and Usefulness (15%) — Could this actually be used by real people? Does it address a meaningful need?
  • Presentation and Demo (10%) — Was the demo clear, engaging, and well-structured?

Judges include Jaseci team members, sponsor representatives, and industry mentors. Winners are selected by judge consensus. All judging decisions are final.

Code of Conduct

JacHacks is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or experience level.

We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form. Harassment includes offensive verbal comments, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. Sponsors, judges, mentors, and organizers are also subject to this policy. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the event with no refund or prize eligibility.

 

If you are being harassed, notice someone else being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of the organizing team immediately. We're here to help.