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hackathons

I’m very grateful for hackathons with large cash prizes. They help with some impactful capitalistic buffers for independent researchers such as myself working in stealth mode and stigmergy, and in showing early demo previews that would eventually define entire software verticals. Moreover, they have been a decent CRM funnel for my low key + very boutique innovation software prototyping sidegig Prototype48.

Three hackathons of note in 2024 include

• Confluent AI Day Hackathon ($10,000), where we created an XR virtual human app that - instead of yet another customer service chat box - lets you have OpenAI Realtime conversations with the AI digital twin of anyone at a company, such as the CEO himself.
• Theta Network 2024 Hackathon ($17,500), where we utilized Theta AI Cloud to create a Unity mobile iPad/Android app that lets you create your own finetunes and monetize using crypto to turn your sketch into a 3D model that you can then mint. (Since the deadline collided, this was also part of my AI3D Desktop demo at SIGGRAPH 2024.)
• Gala Games GDC Hackathon ($100,000), where we flipped MemGPT into “forever storage on the blockchain” - what if your AI3D virtual human LLM conversations could live forever on the blockchain?

And also AI3D Scultable NFT

Here’s an old medium post summarizing winning hackathons from every single big tech company. Of note, my two TechCrunch Disrupt Grand Prizes helped define the field that became known as AR in eCommerce. PointShop (2016) lets you buy anything you see and augment life-size accessories and life-sized products next to it (HoverShop at Money2020 in 2016 did so utilizing cryptocurrency) and faceStylr (2018) defined buying anything you AR try on your face (ad infinitum filters etc).

Thus far, I have won every single million dollar hackathon that was fair. Here are two exceptions:

In 2012, for a Samsung Galaxy Tab $1M Hackathon, we created SolderAR - which simulates soldering in an Android educational app and turns the stylus into a soldering iron. There was an uncertainty period where their review team took a very long time to approve entries. I guess we got silently disqualified. No prize and never even got a notice that we did not win.

In 2024, for the Google Gemini 1M Hackathon, we created AI3D Co-Create, which uses realtime techniques on Android AR to create an intuitive app for humans and Gemini multi-modal to co-create 3D objects in the real world. Several weeks after entry, I got a notice that Google Play had removed my app. It’s easy to set an additional layer of censorship on the server-side, but submission of a brand new bundle was required (and subject to a 72 hour wait period due to slow reviews on the Google Play Store). I guess we got silently disqualified. No prize and never even got a notice that we did not win.

I am notorious on Devpost as yosun.