The standard HackPSU experience: work alone or in a team to build something awesome. All monetary prizes will be split among the winning team members equally.

1st Place: $2000 cash (1 winner)
2nd Place: $1000 cash (1 winner)
3rd Place: $500 cash (1 winner)

Prize: $1500

Research is full of avoidable delays: cleaning and reformatting data, digging through papers by hand, re-running the same analysis over and over, or waiting on a workflow that should be automated. Pick one bottleneck and build a tool that removes it.

Prize: $500

At the opening ceremony, your team receives a realistic business case: a company, its situation, and a decision it needs to make. Use AI throughout your process, whether for research, scenario modeling, or stress-testing your own thinking. Partway through, expect a curveball. New information will change the picture, and your strategy needs to adapt, not restart.

Deliverable: a short slide deck and a 5-minute pitch to a panel of Smeal College of Business faculty. Include how you used AI and where you pushed back on it.

No code allowed and none required. No business background needed. Open to every major. Bring judgment, and a recommendation you can defend.

Case track teams compete only in this track and are not eligible for the Grand Prize.

Prize: $1500
Not every great project starts with a plan. Some start with a surprise.

The General Track is a mystery, and it stays that way until the event begins. Bring your curiosity, your adaptability, and your best improvisation.

Want to know what you're working with? Be at opening ceremony. That's where the mystery gets revealed.

Prize: MLH Swag Kits

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?

Prize: Assorted Prizes

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!

Prize: Stream Deck Mini
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!

Prize: M5Stack Official Tab5

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 prizes for you and your team!

Prize: Wireless Headphones

Auth0 wants your applications to be secure! Why spend hours building features like social sign-in, Multi-Factor Authentication, and passwordless log-in when you can enable them through Auth0 straight out of the box? You can also secure your AI applications with Auth0 for AI Agents.

Auth0 is free to try, doesn’t require a credit card, and allows for up to 7,000 free active users and unlimited log-ins. Make your new account today and use any of the Auth0 APIs for a chance to win a pair of wireless headphones for you and each member of your team!