WELCOME TO HACKPRINCETON SPRING 2026!

At HackPrinceton, you'll meet fellow hackers from around the world, learn new skills, and work alongside seasoned mentors. We'll have free workshops, lecture series, mentorship, prizes, games, and more. Don't have a team or even an idea? Don't worry! We'll give you the tools to build something incredible.

For 36 hours from April 17th to April 19th in-person on Princeton University's campus, you'll have the opportunity to collaborate and build out brilliant, innovative, and impactful ideas.

Our tracks for this semester's Hackathon:

HEALTHCARE

This category recognizes projects that improve healthcare delivery, promote wellness, or address public health challenges. Examples include telehealth solutions, AI-driven diagnostic tools, mental health platforms, and fitness tracking applications.

SUSTAINABILITY

This award highlights projects that leverage technology to address environmental challenges or encourage eco-friendly behaviors. Examples include carbon footprint tracking apps, smart waste management systems, and renewable energy solutions.

BUSINESS & ENTERPRISE

This category focuses on projects that enhance the efficiency of financial tools or streamline business operations. Examples include tools for startups, B2B billing systems, analytics dashboards, cybersecurity solutions, and privacy-focused applications.

ENTERTAINMENT & MEDIA

This category celebrates projects that creatively integrate entertainment and media elements. Examples include storytelling applications, interactive experiences, and media literacy platforms.

EDUCATION

This award is given to projects that make learning more interactive, accessible, or personalized. Examples include e-learning platforms and tools that enable immersive or virtual educational experiences.

Overall Hack Tracks:

BEST OVERALL HACK

This award is given to the best project as determined through both the initial and final judging process. The winning project must excel across all four rubric criteria: creativity, utility, charity, and avidity. The specific track of the project does not matter. Note that track winners are not eligible to win Best Overall Hack.

BEST ROOKIE HACK

This award is given to the best project developed by first-time hackathon participants, recognizing strong execution and creativity from new hackers.

BEST HARDWARE HACK

This category honors projects that creatively incorporate hardware components. This may include IoT systems, robotics, wearable technology, or other physical computing solutions that push the boundaries of innovation.

BEST GAME

Projects that successfully create interactive, exciting, and innovative games through a variety of methods and forms. Examples include Player v. Player games or individual games.

Requirements

1. You must submit a link to your project's public GitHub repository created between April 17, 2026 - April 19, 2026

2. You MAY submit an OPTIONAL video demo that does not exceed 2 minutes in length. Remember to leave time to upload your video to YouTube/any other platform and add the link to your video to your Devpost submission. Note: In-person demos will be required on Sunday, see below!

3. Judging will be from 9:30 AM - 2 PM on Sunday, April 19. Hackers will be expected to present their finished work in front of the judges during this time period. You must prepare for a presentation explaining/demoing your project to the judges that does not exceed 2 minutes in length, even if you attached a video to your project. Your presentation should clearly indicate the problem your hack attempts to solve and a walkthrough of your hack’s functionality.

Please add your Discord usernames to your submission so we can contact you if you win a prize!

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

1 non-cash prize

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1 winner

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Judges

Henry Wei

Shaghayegh Moradirad

Chandra Inguva

Karan Goel

Bhakti Mahato

Ahmed Ibrahim

Aashish Kapoor

Bhavna Seshadri

Anoop Gopi

Pathik Sharma

Anuradha Karnam

Anusha Sheelavant

Sagar Bharat Shah

Aniket Wattamwar

Rajesh Lingam

Himanshu Sahni

Sheshananda Reddy Kandula

Arun Pratap Singh

Devabrat Kumar

Maninder Jeet Singh

Yuchuan Yu

Kartik Pandey

Fenil Shah

Adonai Addo

Surabhi Boob

Andrew Gordon

Rakesh Koul

Shreya Yembarwar

Mounish Sunkara

Artem Tikhonov

Shalini Hasija

Caroline Di Vittorio

Umar Javed

Hope Pratt

Joshua Lau

Andy Zhang

Shayaan Azeem

Bernice Zheng

Will Olson

Dave Anderson

Ritesh Bhalerao

Jane Zhang

Charlie Cai

Ryan Zhu

Daniel Tian

Bach Tran

Krishna Vamsi

Sanchit Agarwal

Noah Brown

Kieran O'Reilly

Adam Selim

Jalen Cheng

Lira Liu

Steve Chen

Elena Lyu

Henry Wei

Eliam Medina

Prateek Mishra

Windsor Nguyen

Nicky He

Tsion Kergo

Kevin Liu

Vitus Larrieu

Justin Bojarski

Prateek Mishra

Judging Criteria

Creativity
How unique is the concept behind the hack? Does it address a problem you didn’t even know existed? Does it address a common problem in a creative way or with an intuitive algorithm? What is this hack’s “ah-ha” moment?
Utility
Does this hack function? If so, how in-depth is its functionality? How likely would you be to frequently use this hack in its current state in your own life?
Charity
Does this hack address a specific societal need? If so, how well does it address it? What contributions does this hack make in the nation’s service and the service of humanity?
Avidity
How excited do the team members seem about the final state of their project? Passion can be demonstrated through their presentation, the project’s description on Devpost, the future plans they have for their hack, or an overall polished program.