ForgeHacks logoForgeHacks
ForgeHacks 2026 · Online AI Hackathon for Students

Forge the Future
with AI.

October 3 - 10, 2026 · Fully online, worldwide

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Why ForgeHacks

Where students forge
the future with AI.

This is the first edition of ForgeHacks, a fully online hackathon created for one reason: to give innovative students everywhere a space to invent, collaborate, and grow without limits.

We're going beyond basic coding and going towards Artificial Intelligence. Whether you’re experimenting with generative AI, building autonomous agents, creating intelligent tools, or exploring entirely new ideas, we want to see what you can create when given time and support.

You’ll get 7 days to build, along with mentor meetings, hands-on workshops for all levels, and prizes celebrating the most innovative projects.

building...
Founders

Meet the founders.

ForgeHacks started as a student idea and became a hackathon for students everywhere. Hover a card to read more.

Ishaan Singh

Ishaan Singh

Co-Founder - ForgeHacks
Sushanth Punuru

Sushanth Punuru

Co-Founder - ForgeHacks
Aarav Narayan

Aarav Narayan

Co-Founder - ForgeHacks
Six Tracks

Build within the theme.

Each track comes with a prompt to guide your project. Pick the track that fits your skills and use its prompt as your starting point.

AI + Healthcare

Tools that improve care, access, or wellbeing.

Prompt

Build an AI-powered solution that makes healthcare information and interactions clearer, more accessible, or easier to act on.

AI + Education

Reimagining how people learn and teach.

Prompt

Build an AI-powered solution that helps learners move beyond memorization to understand concepts, make connections, and apply what they learn.

AI + Climate

Tackling sustainability and environmental challenges.

Prompt

Build an AI-powered solution that helps people understand environmental changes, prepare for climate impacts, use resources wisely, or create resilient systems.

AI + Business

Automating workflows and driving smarter decisions.

Prompt

Build an AI-powered solution that turns business data into clear insights, predictions, or recommendations that help people make better decisions.

AI + Cybersecurity

Protecting digital systems, privacy, and infrastructure.

Prompt

Build an AI-powered solution that helps people recognize, prevent, verify, or respond to scams, impersonation, and fraud enabled by AI or modern technologies.

AI + Creativity

Pushing the boundaries of art, media, and expression.

Prompt

Build an AI-powered experience that introduces a new way for people to create, collaborate, express ideas, or experience art and media.

7 days

The schedule.

Oct 3
Saturday
12:00 PM

ForgeHacks Starts!

Workshops, Mentor Meetings, and more start here.

12:00 PM

Prompts Revealed

Prompts for tracks will be revealed today.

12:00 PM

Start Building

Go to the Discord to find teams, ask questions, or just hang out and learn.

4 - 9
Sun - Sat
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Mentor office hours

1:1 sessions with engineers from our sponsor teams.

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Workshops

Beginner Coder? Join this to learn more about CS basics.

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Ask Questions

If you have questions or need help, ask away. We and Mentors are here to support you.

Oct 10
Saturday 2
12:00 PM

Hacking ends

Submissions lock. Step away from the keyboard.

1:00 PM

Judging

Judges will now start to grade your projects.

5:00 PM

Gallery Opens

Look at all of the submissions here. Not graded yet, just for show.

10 - 11
Sat/Sun
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Judging weekend

Judges will be grading all of your projects.

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Public Voting

Vote for your favorite projects

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Provide Feedback

This is out first hackathon, so we would really appreciate some feedback to do even better next time!

Oct 12
Monday
3:00 PM

Winners Announced

Winners will be revealed, and prizes will be given out!

Prizes

What you'll walk away with.

2nd Place$2090
  • $50 Cash
  • $25 AoPS Giftcard
  • 5 Saily 3GB plans
  • 1-year CodeCrafters VIP for each team member (4x $360 = $1,440)
  • 1-year DevSwarm Pro for each team member (4x $96 = $384)
  • CleanShot X license for each team member (4x $29 = $116)
  • 1,500 ProjectAAL credits ($30)
1st Place$6935
  • $100 Cash
  • $300 Featherless Credits
  • $2,000 Momen Credits
  • $1,000 Adaption Credits
  • $50 AoPS Giftcard
  • 5 Saily 3GB plans
  • 2-year CodeCrafters VIP for each team member (4x $720 = $2,880)
  • 1-year DevSwarm Pro for each team member (4x $96 = $384)
  • CleanShot X license for each team member (4x $29 = $116)
  • 3,000 ProjectAAL credits ($60)
  • 1 month of Fulminare Maximus ($48 value)
3rd Place$1330
  • $25 Cash
  • $25 AoPS Giftcard
  • 5 Saily 3GB plans
  • 6-month CodeCrafters VIP for each team member (4x $180 = $720)
  • 1-year DevSwarm Pro for each team member (4x $96 = $384)
  • CleanShot X license for each team member (4x $29 = $116)
  • 750 ProjectAAL credits ($15)

Participation Perks

What you get just for joining
Featherless.ai logo
perk · Featherless.ai

$25 free API credits • Instant Open-Source AI

Access 30,000+ AI models via API without managing GPUs.

Momen logo
perk · Momen

$100 Momen credits • Build Web Apps Fast

Skip backend setup and launch web apps fast with zero code.

Devswarm logo
perk · Devswarm

($96) 1 Month Free Devswarm Pro • Code Faster Together

Boost team collaboration and ship cleaner code with AI dev tools.

Tin.computer logo
perk · Tin.computer

$299 Credits (1-Mo Growth Plan) • Autonomous AI Growth Agent

Tin Computer is an autonomous growth agent that connects to a project's GitHub, analytics and Stripe and ships pull requests to grow it: SEO pages, landing-page fixes, ads and support replies. Every eligible team at ForgeHacks gets $299 in Tin Computer credits, one month of the Growth plan.

Adaption Labs logo
perk · Adaption Labs

$500 in Adaption platform credits • Build Web Apps Fast

Automate website optimization, run growth experiments, and handle bug fixes autonomously.

n8n logo
perk · n8n

($65) 1 month n8n Cloud Pro • Automate Any Workflow

Automate website optimization, run growth experiments, and handle bug fixes autonomously.

First Come, First Served - First 300 Redemptions

Kariaa logo
perk · Kariaa

$40 in Kariaa credits • AI-Powered Work & Jobs

Automate website optimization, run growth experiments, and handle bug fixes autonomously.

YouCam API - Perfect Corp logo
perk · YouCam API - Perfect Corp

$27.50 in YouCam API credits • Visual Experiences APIs

AI-powered APIs for image generation, editing, enhancement, and more.

First Come, First Served - First 1000 Redemptions

Agentboxd logo
perk · Agentboxd

30 days of the Agentboxd Builder plan ($15) • Give AI Agents Their Own Email Inboxes

Give AI agents real email inboxes and check every incoming email for prompt injection and phishing.

First Come, First Served - First 800 Redemptions

ProjectAAL logo
perk · ProjectAAL

250 ProjectAAL credits ($5) • AI-Powered App Building

Build, debug, iterate, and complete React and TypeScript apps with AI-powered tools and multiple AI models.

Fulminare logo
perk · Fulminare

1 month of Fulminare Lumen ($8) • AI Agent & Cloud Computing

All ForgeHacks participants get 1 month of Fulminare Lumen free, with no credit card required or auto-renewal. Every member of a winning team receives 1 month of Fulminare Maximus ($48 value). Redeem by October 31, 2026.

Certificates

Every team that submits a project earns one.

ForgeHacks Spotlight

Standout projects get featured on our site and socials.

Audience Favorite

Voted on live by fellow hackers at the showcase.

Judges

Meet the judges.

Our judging panel brings real industry and technical experience to evaluating every ForgeHacks project. Hover a card to read more.

Aditya Shrivastava

Aditya Shrivastava

Software Engineer - Barclays
Sashank Agarwal

Sashank Agarwal

Senior Cloud Software and Infrastructure Engineer - NVIDIA
Prakshal Doshi

Prakshal Doshi

Site Reliability Engineer - Apple
Eesha Tariq

Eesha Tariq

AI Researcher & Software Engineer - MIT Critical Data / The Islamia University of Bahawalpur
Saylee Mhatre

Saylee Mhatre

Director of Engineering - Electronic Arts Inc
Sharath Chandra Kampili

Sharath Chandra Kampili

Staff Enterprise Architect - Cockroach Labs
Dwijen Kirtania

Dwijen Kirtania

Senior Staff Software Engineer / AI Architect - Intuit Inc
RatnaKumar Bonagiri

RatnaKumar Bonagiri

Staff Engineer - Macy's
Tamim Sangrar

Tamim Sangrar

Senior Product Manager - AI Identity Governance - Microsoft
Aishwarya Kannoth Putlumbath

Aishwarya Kannoth Putlumbath

Business Analyst - AMD
Aditi Patodiya

Aditi Patodiya

Senior Software Engineer - Amazon
Oleksandr Tkachenko

Oleksandr Tkachenko

Senior Software Engineer - Playtech
Pratik Ghawate

Pratik Ghawate

Senior Analytics Engineer
Aman Goyal

Aman Goyal

AI Agent / AI Product Manager - TMobile
Abdulrasaq (Dulra) Amolegbe

Abdulrasaq (Dulra) Amolegbe

CoFounder/CEO - AgentStatus
Ivan Tesolkin

Ivan Tesolkin

Independent Business Consultant - Tesolkin Consulting
Diksha Thakur

Diksha Thakur

Software Engineer - Reddit
Xihao Cao

Xihao Cao

Senior Data Scientist - Walmart Global Tech
Satya Veerendra Vegulla

Satya Veerendra Vegulla

Senior Engineering Manager - Enact Systems
Ravi Shanker Thadishetti

Ravi Shanker Thadishetti

Senior Software Engineer - PayPal
Lucas Marinus

Lucas Marinus

Commercial Lead - Parahelp
Dhruv Sekhawat

Dhruv Sekhawat

Co-founder & CTO - Loandock
Arun Taneja

Arun Taneja

Principal Software Engineer - Oracle
Nilesh Dhage

Nilesh Dhage

Director Product Management - Financial Services
Dhiraj Ramnani

Dhiraj Ramnani

Staff Software Engineer - Meta
Mentors & Community

Guided by builders
who've been there.

Our mentors bring real engineering and AI experience to help teams get unstuck. Hover a card to read more.

Sachin Gurjar

Sachin Gurjar

AI Researcher - Apexlayer Technologies
Anudeep Bonagiri

Anudeep Bonagiri

CEO & Co-founder - Cruze Maps
Sai Prasad Saladi

Sai Prasad Saladi

Senior Software Engineer / Technology Leader - U.S. Bank
Swapneswar Sundar Ray

Swapneswar Sundar Ray

Assistant Vice President | Principal Machine Learning Engineer - U.S. Bank
Ujwal Suresh Vanjare

Ujwal Suresh Vanjare

Software Engineer - BNSF Railway
Saiprasad Charudatta Shrikhande

Saiprasad Charudatta Shrikhande

Senior Manager - Cognizant Technology Solutions
Pragati Ingole

Pragati Ingole

Data Analyst - Options For Learning
Tanya Kapoor

Tanya Kapoor

Business Analyst - Sheladia Associates, Inc.
Shivakrishna Vangala

Shivakrishna Vangala

Principal Architect - T-Mobile
Zeeshan Ali

Zeeshan Ali

KMP Developer & AI Engineer - Freelancer
Ganesh Harke

Ganesh Harke

Vice President, Technology - Citi
Karthik Uppala

Karthik Uppala

Founder - ProjectAAL
Ambassadors

Meet our ambassadors.

Our ambassadors are the heart of ForgeHacks, bringing together passionate builders, creative minds, and future innovators. They're here to spread the word, grow our community, and inspire the next generation of hackers.

Adam de Leeuw

Arya Sanga

Carter Wood

Fatima AlNetaif

Milan Štěrba

Saharsh Losetty

Backed by

Sponsors & partners.

Featherless logo
AoPS logo
CodeCrafters logo
Momen logo
Tin Computer logo
DevSwarm logo
Cleanshot logo
Adaption Labs logo
Kariaa logo
n8n logo
Saily logo
Perfectcorp logo
Agentboxd logo
ProjectAAL logo
Fulminare logo

Partners & Sponsors

Sponsorship for this event are open. Connect with top student talent and showcase your brand to thousands of ambitious builders.

Become a Sponsor
Questions

Good to know.

Yes — ForgeHacks is a fully online hackathon, so you can take part from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

Ready to forge?

Join thousands of other high school and college students building with AI.

Register Now