Hackathon 2026
Give agents hands, ears and voice.
Applications close September 28 · Not selected? The participation fee comes back in full
One day, one tool, yours to keep.
A hackathon by Malt and Antasphere for Belgium's senior AI freelancers, at WAT in Brussels. One day building one tool for an agent that uses a computer, coaches in the room, a jury at six. You leave with a tool you can put to work on Monday, credits to keep building, and a shot at the prizes.
The theme
Tools for agents that use computers
A computer-use agent works software the way you do: it looks at the screen, clicks, types, looks again, until the job is done. No API, no integration. The tools around it are the sprint: the functions it calls, the skills it draws on, the guardrails before the risky click.
The starter stack: hands, ears and voice
Antasphere ships a boilerplate with both sponsored APIs already wired in, so the day starts at your idea and not at a client library. Clone it and the agent can already drive a screen, hear a person and answer out loud. Every participant gets access to both for the day, and neither is compulsory.
H Company, the hands
H is a computer-use agent lab from Paris; its Holo models read a screen and work out what to click. Every participant gets unlimited access for the whole hackathon to the Computer-Use Agents API: browser and desktop environments, sessions, skills, custom tools, MCP, Python and TypeScript SDKs, EU-hosted. Prefer your own loop? The Holo models sit behind an OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Docs and a walkthrough video reach you the night before; their team is in the room.
Gradium, the ears and the voice
Gradium develops voice models for real-time voice interactions, with text-to-speech, speech-to-text, voice cloning, and live translation available through its API. Every participant gets 100,000 credits, solo or in a team, and the code to redeem them reaches you once your seat is confirmed. Their introduction guide and their gallery of examples are the short way in, and their community Discord answers through the day.
Eight directions, none mandatory
Wrap software that has no API
A public portal, a bank back office, an old ERP: the agent drives the screen, your tool exposes a typed function.
Hand the agent your own tools
Functions from your code it calls mid-run: look up an order, check a calendar, verify a payment.
Turn a walkthrough into a skill
Record a person doing the task once, and distill it into an instruction the agent replays.
Ship QA as a tool
An agent that uses your product like a user and returns a verdict, callable from CI or a coding assistant.
Build the privacy layer
Redact the screen before the model sees it, hold secrets locally, ask before the risky click.
Guide the human, not the agent
Watch the screen, work out the next step, point at the button and say why.
Leave the browser
Native apps, the file system, several windows: tools that drive a real desktop.
Make it one step of something bigger
Subagents, a session on a schedule, a webhook when it lands, the whole thing served over MCP.
Doors, not the brief. Bring your own idea, on the stack you prefer. The jury scores the tool, not the vendor.
Why join
Built for freelancers who move fast
Models handle the thinking. The tools, integrations and workflows that turn them into action are the layer this sprint is for.
Build stuff that lasts
Starter templates get you going; the best tools can land on a marketplace to deploy and monetize.
High-density talent
No workshops, no small talk: a day in the trenches with vetted AI engineers, architects and tech leads.
Direct access to top tech partners
Advanced APIs, infrastructure and models from our partners: a sandbox for your stack.
A premium, zero-friction setup
Your €20 participation fee goes 100% back to you: catering, coffee, drinks and a workspace at WAT built for flow.
How you join
Come with a team, or come alone
Bring your own team, or apply solo and we match you with complementary teammates across AI engineering, cloud and product. Teams and the briefing reach you by email on October 1, the night before.
The program
One window, one day
Teams and documents arrive the night before. The clock starts Friday at 08:30 and stops at 18:00 in front of the jury. Scroll to run the bar.
August 15 applications open September 28 applications close By email selection announced, non-selected fully refunded
Thursday, October 1 · By email
19:00
Teams and documents
The night before: your team, the briefing, the Slack channel, and the partners’ docs and walkthrough video land in your inbox.
Friday, October 2 · WAT
08:00
Doors and breakfast
Coffee and croissants, and a desk with your team on it.
Friday, October 2 · WAT
08:30
Kick-off
Thirty minutes on the theme and the people: organizers, jury, coaches, and H Company on its computer-use stack. The clock starts.
Friday, October 2 · WAT
09:00
The build sprint
Heads down on the main floor, coaches in the room all day.
Friday, October 2 · WAT
12:30
Working lunch
Lunch comes to the desks, the building does not stop.
Friday, October 2 · WAT
18:00
Pitches, jury and prizes
Every team presents live, the jury deliberates, the prizes land.
Friday, October 2 · WAT
19:00
Drinks
Tools shipped, glasses raised.
The people and the prizes
Jury, coaches, sponsors and the prizes
Every name lands here as it is confirmed. The scoring is settled: see the evaluation grid, six criteria, the same for every team.
The jury
Laurent Hublet · Emilie Gazeau · Léo Martin · Clément Van Goethem · Arne Lieten · Hita Sheth
Laurent Hublet is the Brussels Minister for Employment, the Economy and the Digital Economy, and the co-founder of BeCentral.
Practitioners, partners and public figures judging technical depth and go-to-market. Clément Van Goethem and Arne Lieten are ML engineers at ML6, and Hita Sheth coordinates FARI's AI Accelerator programme.
The coaches
Andrea Balducci · Luca Derumier · Romain Pattyn · Korhan Kale · Léo Martin · Jules Belveze
Senior builders in the room all day, from the first commit to the final pitch. Jules Belveze is an agent researcher at H Company, there for the sponsored stack.
Sponsors and partners
H Company · ML6 · Gradium · FARI · Unanim Studio · Escapp Studio · WAT
H Company powers the sprint: the sponsored stack, unlimited access to its computer-use agents for every participant on the day, six months of premium access for the winning team, their team in the room. ML6, the AI engineering company from Ghent, sponsors the day and sends two of its ML engineers to the jury. Gradium, which develops voice models for real-time voice interactions, sponsors it too and gives every participant credits on its voice API. FARI, the AI for the Common Good institute run in Brussels by the VUB and the ULB, holds a jury seat and opens its Digital Cave to the winning team. Unanim Studio, the creative studio from Braine-l'Alleud, Escapp Studio, the Brussels serious-game studio, and WAT, our host, partner the day.
The prizes
€10,000+ in prizes and credits
Everyone leaves with something, the winners with more. The sponsors' prizes are in kind, in their own words; more lands here as partners confirm.
- Every participant Unlimited access to H Company's computer-use agents for the whole hackathon, and 100,000 credits on Gradium's voice API.
- The winning team €2,000 in API credits, yours to spend on OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or Mistral. Four hours in FARI's Digital Cave, the computer-augmented virtual environment at their Brussels institute. Six months of premium access to H Company's computer-use agents, over 6,000 sessions per person, to build the product after the day. Gradium credits to keep the voice running.
- More tracks Further prizes as partners confirm.
- H Company
- Gradium
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Mistral AI
The venue
WAT, Brussels
WAT is the startup hub Thibaud Elzière is building in a converted industrial block at Rue Volta 6A in Ixelles. For one day its floors are ours: breakfast under the skylight, the sprint in the coworking rooms, pitches and drinks at the bar. Five hundred metres from the Arcades station.
Visit wat.com ↗
Why we're doing this.
We think this is the start of something big: for the first time, software can be used by something other than a person. Nobody knows yet where the line between a person and their agent will settle. We spend our days on that line, using agents for real work and turning what holds into tools.
A hackathon is that day, compressed: a roomful of builders, one floor, one question. What does an agent need in its hands to be useful? Come find out, and leave with a tool you keep using.
The Antasphere Hackathon team Malt × Antasphere
Applications close September 28. The €20 fee, paid when you apply, goes entirely into the day and comes back in full if you are not selected.
