Techstars StartUp Weekend - PAI Palooza & GDG Build with AI
This AI Hackathon Series Tour is a groundbreaking, multi-city event that spans the United States, bringing together the brightest minds in artificial intelligence to innovate, collaborate, and compete over a 3-day period. Culminating in the PAI Palooza, a showcase of the host city's most promising AI startups and projects, each event aims to foster community, drive technological advancement, and highlight the capabilities of AI across various industries.
The envisioned event is a groundbreaking fusion of artificial intelligence innovation, competitive hacking spirit, and cutting-edge technological exposition, wrapped in the vibrant atmosphere reminiscent of the Lollapalooza music festival.
The event is meant to empower entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is a 54-hour event that brings together developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiasts to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups.
This AI-focused Touring Hackathon & Tech Fair takes the essence of a traditional hackathon — where entrepreneurs, developers, designers, product owners, and tech enthusiasts come together to solve problems and create new technologies, and possibly companies, within a set period — and elevates it with the inclusion of AI technologies at its core. Participants will engage in intense hackathon challenges aimed at harnessing the power of AI to solve real-world problems, innovate, and develop applications that push the boundaries of what's currently possible. Including using AI itself to build MVP with more technical depth in a shortened period of time (48 hours).
Complementing the hackathon, the event features a tech fair showcasing the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, and related fields. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience hands-on demos, attend workshops led by industry experts, and witness keynote speeches that inspire and forecast the future of technology. This touring event brings together a community of tech enthusiasts, professionals, and students, promoting collaboration, learning, and innovation in a dynamic, festival-like environment.
Prizes:
First Place
Prize Value: $2500 - Musa Capital GTM Services, DoubleU Virtual Assistant, Rosenfeld Media, Vectara, Founder.AI, This is Not a Drill, Deel, Google Cloud, Brex, Vaunt, and FounderWay.
Justification: The first-place team has demonstrated exceptional performance in terms of innovation, validation, execution, and business model. This larger prize reflects the team's outstanding achievement and provides them with significant resources to further develop their startup.
Second Place
Prize Value: $1500 - Musa Capital GTM Services, DoubleU Virtual Assistant, Rosenfeld Media, Vectara, Founder.AI, This is Not a Drill, Deel, Google Cloud, Brex, Vaunt, and FounderWay.
Justification: The second-place team has shown strong potential and made substantial progress. This prize recognizes their hard work and encourages them to continue refining their project.
Third Place
Prize Value: $500 - Musa Capital GTM Services, DoubleU Virtual Assistant, Rosenfeld Media, Vectara, Founder.AI, This is Not a Drill, Deel, Google Cloud, Brex, Vaunt, and FounderWay.
Justification: The third-place team should also have made notable contributions and shown promise. This prize acknowledges their efforts and provides them with some support to keep moving forward.
Honorable Mentions
For teams that have performed exceptionally well but did not place in the top three, PAI Palooza Hackathons proudly offers Honorable Mentions. These teams will receive non-monetary awards such as free mentoring sessions, co-working space access, or services from our event sponsors. These rewards aim to support and encourage continued innovation and development of their projects, recognizing their hard work and potential.
Judges
Lisa Stone, Chief Investment Officer and General Partner/VC at BrainTrust Fund
Rick Liu, Software Engineer II at Amazon
Kevin Macwan, Engineering Leader at Amazon | Forbes Technology Council Official Member
Maya Bisineer, Product Lead @Microsoft Designer, Board Member, Startup Advisor
Friday
4:00 PM - Participant Check-in and Welcome Snacks
5:00 PM - Opening Ceremony: Welcome Speech, Getting started with the PAI OS, Hackathon Rules and Goals
6:00 PM - Team Formation and Networking Activities
7:00 PM - Dinner Served, Sponsored by Fondo
8:00 PM - Idea Pitch Session and Team Finalization
8:40 PM - "Introduction to Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) with Milvus", Christy Bergman, Developer Advocate at Zilliz
9:00 PM - Midnight - Hackathon Begins: Teams Start Working on Projects
Saturday
8:00 AM - Coffee Served
9:00 AM - Morning Check-In: Quick Team Updates, Mentor Availability Announced
10:00 AM - Vaunt introduction and demo, Simon Cheng, DevRel @Vaunt
11:00 AM - Getting started with the PAI OS
12:00 PM - Lunch Break
1:00 - 2:00 - Deterministic AI - KG Charles-Harris, Founder & CEO, Quarrio.com
2:00 - 5:00 PM - Coding Continues: Teams Work on Projects, Mentor Round
4:30 PM - FounderWay.AI introduction and demo - Kiran Panjwani, Founder
5:00 PM - Mid-Hack Check-In: Optional Project Updates, Refreshment Break
6:00 PM - Break for Dinner - Sponsored by: Your Budget
7:00 PM - Midnight - Evening Coding Session: Focus Time, Mentors Available for Scheduled Consultations
Midnight - 3AM - 3 hour vinyl deep house & techno DJ Mix | Joe Sansom
Sunday
9:00 AM - Final Coding Push: Teams Work on Finalizing Projects and Presentations, Deploying and Setting up Infra
2:00 PM - Project Submission Deadline (Stretch Goals,LOI's,Sales, and Customers!!!)
5:00 PM - - Project Pitches Begin: Teams Present to Judges and Audience
6:00 PM - Judges Break Away to deliberate
7:00 PM - Closing Ceremony: Awards Announcement, Closing Remarks from Event Organizers and Sponsors