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2 months ago

Week 3 Welcome

Hi Everyone,

22 days left! We'll be giving a Discord Workshop session on Wednesday, March 25th at 1 PM PST, details to come. Yesterday AI+ Renaissance happened, and I think there were some nice intersections with the subject area of our hackathon, things like local data wallets, hardware devices, and scaling AI delegation to increase autonomy and reduce unproductive friction. Happy to discuss in the Discord channel.

We're certainly growing! We're at 1,060 registered participants and are starting to see some compelling submissions — which is what it's all about, right? Well, networking matters too, so don't forget to check in on Discord from time to time.

Some of you may have missed the judge profiles since they're buried in the Discussions channel, so we're resharing them here.

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Q&A with Neta Retter — Director of Innovation Programs at Okta. Former Global Hackathon Lead at Meta, where she scaled company-wide hackathons and led Meta's first-ever HBCU Hackathon. Electrical engineer turned innovation leader with 11 years at Broadcom and a deep commitment to inclusive STEM.

What excites you most about what AI agents are becoming?
What excites me most is that agents are democratizing the ability to build solutions. The people closest to a problem, who understand the nuanced challenges, can now build and iterate quickly. That's where the. ost meaningful innovation happens. And as that power becomes more accessible, building securely and earning trust matters more than ever before.

What kind of submissions are you hoping to see? What would make a project stand out to you?
I'm looking for projects that do something unexpected. Forget what agents are supposed to do. Show me something that solves a real problem in a way that makes people go, "Wait, I didn't even know an agent could do that."

What advice would you give to builders who want to push the boundaries of what agents can do?
I think the core principles of building something valuable remain the same, the possibilities are just amplified with agents. Be as close as possible to the problem you want to solve, think really creatively and unleash your imagination on how to solve it and combine conviction with iteration.

or

Be as close as possible to the problem you're solving. Think creatively about how to solve it. Then combine that conviction with the humility to iterate. The tools just amplify what's already possible when you get those fundamentals right.

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Q&A with Sanjay Singh — Staff Software Engineer at LinkedIn. IEEE-published author and RSA Conference 2026 speaker focused on cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, and zero-trust security.

What excites you most about what AI agents are becoming?
What excites me most is the shift from AI as a passive tool to AI as an active collaborator. Agents can now reason more effectively, take actions, coordinate across different systems, and continuously learn. This is opening the door to solving complex real-world problems that previously required large human teams.

What kind of submissions are you hoping to see? What would make a project stand out to you?
I am looking for projects that go beyond simple chat interfaces to demonstrate autonomous decision-making, real integrations with systems or data, and clear real-world impact. A standout project will show a specific problem being solved through the creative use of agents working together.

What advice would you give to builders who want to push the boundaries of what agents can do?
Focus on solving meaningful problems rather than just showcasing AI. Try combining agents with real tools, APIs, and workflows. The most powerful systems emerge when agents can observe, reason, and act in the real world.

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Q&A with Vasu Jain — Senior Software Engineer at Amazon Ads. Designs infrastructure handling millions of requests per second across Prime Video and live sports. His Amazon hackathon pitch became Pause Ads, now live and serving millions of customers.

What kind of submissions are you hoping to see?
I want to see agents that go beyond simple API calls—submissions where agents authenticate, orchestrate multi-step workflows, and interact with services the way humans do but faster, smarter, and more reliably. Bonus points for agents that solve real problems people face in their daily digital lives.

What would make a project stand out to you?
A project that combines genuine creativity with production-level thinking. I am not just looking for a cool demo—I want to see thoughtful architecture, smart use of Token Vault for secure authentication, graceful error handling, and a clear vision for how the agent could scale beyond the hackathon.

What advice would you give to builders who want to push the boundaries of what agents can do?
Do not just build an agent that does one thing—build an agent that orchestrates many things. Think about context, memory, and multi-step reasoning. The best agents are not the ones that execute tasks—they are the ones that figure out which tasks to execute and in what order.

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Discord channel: https://discord.gg/fZq5vGj7

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon, please post on the discussion forum.