About the challenge

Build what actually works.

GIBC V2 is a fully online, student-led international hackathon. Over a ten-week build, students around the world worked solo or in teams of up to six and submitted one project to one of three tracks.

Online · publicStudents · ages 13+Teams of 1–61,737 participants

View the projects Official rules

(01) The idea

Getting code to run has never been easier. Getting a system to actually work — at scale, under real constraints — is still hard. That gap is what this hackathon is about.

GIBC V1 brought together 552 participants worldwide, with backing from sponsors including NordVPN. V2 builds on that with three tracks, an international judging panel and a larger sponsor lineup.

Projects are reviewed by a panel of industry professionals and academic experts. Winners are announced on Devpost on October 18, 2026, with a virtual closing ceremony the week after. There’s no extra presentation after you submit — judging is based entirely on the Devpost submission.

(02) Eligibility

Who could enter.

Who: Students worldwide, at any level from middle school through university.
Age: 13 or older. Participants under 18 should have a parent’s or guardian’s permission to enter and to have their name published on their project page, which certificates require.
Location: All countries and territories, except those excluded under Devpost’s standard terms and applicable sanctions law.
Not eligible: Companies and professional organisations entering as an entity; GIBC organisers, judges and their immediate families.
Teams: Solo or up to six people. Each team submits exactly one project to exactly one track, and a person may belong to only one submitting team.

(03) How it worked

Four steps to a submission.

Register on Devpost

Registration happened on Devpost — required to submit, even if you had signed up on this website first.

July 11 – October 1

Build solo or form a team

Work alone or assemble a team of up to six, then pick the one track that fits what you want to build.

1–6 members

Join the Discord

Find teammates, ask the organisers questions, get announcements and sponsor redemption codes.

Recommended

Submit before the deadline

All six required components complete on Devpost. Late submissions are not reviewed.

Closed Oct 2, 11:45 PM

Join the Discord

(04) What to submit

Six parts, all required.

A submission missing any of these isn’t eligible for judging.

01Project descriptionOn your Devpost project page: what you built, the problem it solves and how it works under the hood.

02Source codeA public repository on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Hugging Face with a README covering setup, prerequisites and how to run it.

03Demo video2–5 minutes on YouTube, Vimeo or Youku — unlisted is fine, private is not. Show it running and explain your approach, in English audio or with English subtitles.

04Built WithEvery technology, framework, library, API, dataset, AI tool and hardware component you used.

05Team informationEvery member listed by real full name, each with a Devpost account added to the submission — otherwise they won’t appear or receive a certificate.

06ScreenshotsAt least three images showing your interface, data pipeline, training curves or physical build.

(05) Fair play

The rules that matter.

Original work

Built during the hackathon

Projects must be built during the hackathon period. Pre-existing projects, commercial products or near-copies of earlier hackathon entries are disqualified.

Third-party code

Allowed — with credit

Open-source libraries, frameworks, public datasets, templates and (where your track allows) pretrained components are fine. Credit them in Built With and your README.

AI tools

Allowed — disclose them

Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, ChatGPT, v0 and the like are allowed without restriction. List them in Built With and note in the README which parts were AI-assisted.

Deadline state

The repo at the deadline

Your repository as it stood at the deadline is what gets judged; commits pushed afterwards may be disregarded.

Access

Public and runnable

Repositories must be public and unrestricted; document paid API keys or unusual setups. If judges can’t access your work, they contact you once — no reply within 48 hours means no review.

Language

English

All descriptions, documentation and demo videos must be in English (audio or subtitles).

(06) Judging

How winners are chosen.

Scoring: Judges score each project only against the criteria for its own track — other tracks’ criteria don’t apply.
Medals: In each track, the highest-scoring projects receive Gold, then Silver, then Bronze.
Grand Champion: The highest-scoring project across all three tracks — it keeps its track prize too.
Ties: Broken by the track’s first-listed criterion, then by the judging panel chair.
Conflicts: Judges recuse themselves from projects involving a student they teach, mentor or are related to.
Appeals: Email gibc.official.team@gmail.com within 72 hours of the announcement. Organiser decisions after review are final.

Track criteria Prizes

(07) Ownership

You own your work.

Participants keep all intellectual property in their submissions. By submitting, you let GIBC display your project name, description, screenshots and team names to run and promote the event.

Everyone follows the GIBC Code of Conduct. Harassment, plagiarism or misrepresenting your work means removal from the event.