Name: Gator Quant Hacks
Start: 2026-10-02T18:45:00.000-04:00
End: 2026-10-04T11:00:00.000-04:00
Location: Gator Quant Hacks

Gator Quant Hacks is a national quantitative finance competition at the University of Florida, held October 2 to 4, 2026 at the Reitz Union. Undergraduate and graduate students from across the country spend the weekend solving quant puzzles, building systematic trading strategies, and working on hardware, with workshops, speakers, and a mixer with firm representatives along the way.

Tracks

Quantitative Puzzles & Brainteasers: probability, math, and algorithmic challenges, ranked on a live leaderboard
Systematic Trading: design, backtest, and evaluate a trading strategy on data from our partners
Hardware: see the Hacker Guide for the track brief

Schedule and Track prizes are listed in the Hacker Guide.

Full event guide: gqhacks.notion.site/hacker-guide
Discord: discord.gg/9qPMtN4UB

Requirements

These rules are provided as a starting point and should be reviewed by counsel before publishing.

Eligibility

Open to students currently enrolled at an accredited U.S. college or university, undergraduate or graduate, who are at least 18 years old as of October 2, 2026.
Participants must be able to legally receive prizes. Employees of sponsoring firms, organizers, judges, and their immediate family members are not eligible for prizes but are welcome to attend.
Proof of enrollment, such as a valid student ID, may be requested at check-in and before prizes are awarded.

Teams

Solo entries are allowed. Maximum team size is listed in the Hacker Guide.
Team members must attend in person.
Each participant may join only one team, and each team may submit to only one track.
Teams may form and change until hacking begins on Friday. After that, rosters are locked.

Project rules

Rules depend per-track. Please view the Hacker Guide for more information.

Conduct

All participants, judges, mentors, sponsors, and organizers must follow the Gator Quant Hacks Terms and the MLH Code of Conduct. These apply in the venue, in Discord, and in all event channels.
We are committed to an event free of harassment for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or level of experience.
Harassment includes offensive verbal comments, unwelcome sexual attention, deliberate intimidation, stalking, sustained disruption of talks or events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome photography or recording.
Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
Organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender, removal from the event, disqualification from prizes, and removal from event channels.
To report an issue, contact any organizer in person, message the organizer team in Discord, or email dominickdupuy@ufl.edu. Reports will be handled discreetly.

Disqualification

The organizers may disqualify any submission that plagiarizes, misrepresents original work, uses data not permitted for its track, cannot be reproduced from submitted code, or violates the Code of Conduct.

General

Organizers reserve the right to modify the schedule, format, prizes, or rules at any time. Material changes will be announced in Discord and posted in the Hacker Guide.
Judges' decisions are final.
Participation is at your own risk. In-person attendees are responsible for their own travel, lodging, and personal belongings.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

12 non-cash prizes

MLH: Best Use of ElevenLabs - [Wireless Earbuds]

1 winner

Deploy natural, human-sounding audio with ElevenLabs. Create realistic, dynamic, and emotionally expressive voices for any project, from interactive AI companions to narrated stories and voice-enabled apps. ElevenLabs will empower you to build rich, immersive experiences without the need for actors or complex audio production, using simply the power of AI.

Integrate fully autonomous audio experiences into your hack with ElevenLabs and give your project a voice, along with giving your team the chance to win some wireless earbuds!

MLH: Best Use of Gemini API - [MLH Swag Kits]

1 winner

It’s time to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI using Google Gemini. Check out the Gemini API to build AI-powered apps that make your friends say WHOA. So, what can Gemini do for your hackathon project?

Understand language like a human and build a chatbot that gives personalized advice
Analyze info like a supercomputer and create an app that summarizes complex research papers
Generate creative content like code, scripts, music, and more
Think of the possibilities… what will you build with the Google Gemini API this weekend?

MLH: Best Use of Solana - [Ledger Nano S Plus]

1 winner

The world of development is evolving fast and Solana is leading the charge with a network built to handle all of your infrastructure needs. Forget high fees and slow confirmations, it’s time to build applications that are fast, efficient, and scalable.

Harness Solana’s core advantages like blazing fast execution and near-zero transaction costs to make your hackathon ideas become real world projects. With Solana, the possibilities are endless.

Create a game, social app, or consumer product that relies on instant, high-frequency transactions.
Design a sophisticated trading, lending, or decentralized exchange (DEX).
Build a prototype for supply chain, identity, or payments that can handle massive, real-world volume.
Show us how you can innovate with Solana for a chance to win some cool prizes for you and each member of your team!

MLH: Best Use of Tiger Data - [Stream Deck Mini]

1 winner

Building high-performance apps under hackathon deadlines shouldn't mean spending half your weekend configuring complex databases or learning obscure query languages. Tiger Data extends PostgreSQL to give student developers an ultra-fast foundation for real-time data, time-series metrics, and complex analytics.

Why build with Tiger Data this weekend?

Standard SQL Power: Query massive datasets instantly using the SQL you already know, with no complex NoSQL aggregation pipelines required.

Unified Data Stack: Store relational user profiles and high-frequency metric streams side-by-side in a single database.

Instant Dashboards: Serve lag-free, real-time frontend charts using pre-computed Continuous Aggregates.

90%+ Data Compression: Store millions of events on free-tier cloud instances without running out of disk space.

Whether you’re building real-time IoT monitoring, AI-driven analytics dashboards, or financial prediction engines, show us how Tiger Data powers your project. The team that demonstrates the most innovative, impactful, and performance-driven use of Tiger Data will take home some great prizes!

MLH: Best Use of Vultr - [Portable Screens]

1 winner

Vultr empowers hackers to bring their high-performance projects to life instantly; providing everything from the speed of one-click deployment and scalable cloud compute, to specialized Vultr Cloud GPUs that can power AI-driven applications. We want you to push the limits of what can be built when infrastructure is no longer the bottleneck!

Sign up for a Vultr account today and claim your free cloud credits! Take your next hack to the cloud with Vultr for a chance to win some awesome portable screens for you and your team!

MLH: Best Use of Snowflake API - [Raspberry Pi 4]

1 winner

Play with industry-leading LLMs on a single account using the Snowflake APIs. Adding AI capabilities into your application can be as simple as a single CURL command to Snowflake’s REST API.

Build customized applications, RAG powered chat bots, or embed AI-powered features into your app in half the time with half the hassle. Get started for free with a special, student 120-day Snowflake trial and check out this repository for an example of the Snowflake REST API in action.