What kinds of AI hackathons and events does LabLab host?

LabLab hosts online, hybrid, and in-person AI hackathons that are free to attend, built around partner technologies such as AMD, AssemblyAI, and BAND. Events range from month-long online challenges to multi-month developer programs, and most are open to participants worldwide. If you are an AI developer, founder, or builder who wants to ship a project against a real technology stack, these events are designed for you.

Event formats

LabLab's upcoming events fall into three formats:

• Online — fully remote, build from anywhere. Examples: the Lablab x AMD AI Academy Challenge and the AssemblyAI Voice Agent Hackathon.
• Hybrid — an online build phase followed by an on-site phase. Example: AMD Developer Hackathon: ACT III (online build October 12–17, on-site October 17–18).
• In-person tie-ins — some online hackathons grant access to a physical conference. The WeAreDevelopers x BAND Dark Factory hackathon offers sign-ups a free ticket to WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America in San Jose (September 23–25).

Themes and partner technologies

Each hackathon is organized around a specific technology or problem, usually supplied by a partner company:

Themes cluster around modern AI: voice agents, agentic coding workflows, and developer tooling. The Dark Factory event, for instance, asks you to build "a band of coding agents that plans work, implements it and checks its own results" inside BAND Desktop.

Duration and registration windows

Event length varies significantly:

• One week — Dark Factory runs September 26 – October 6.
• One month — AssemblyAI Voice Agent Hackathon runs September 1–30, with a $10,000 prize pool ($5,000 cash plus $5,000 in AssemblyAI credits).
• Three months — Lablab x AMD AI Academy Challenge runs September 1 – December 1 and is open to individual participants only.

Registration windows are not always closed after kickoff. The AssemblyAI hackathon explicitly keeps registration open for the whole build window, so you can start on day one or join halfway through and still submit.

What you need to join

• An account with the partner program when required. For AMD Developer Hackathon: ACT III, you sign up with AMD, and if you are not already in the AMD AI Developer Program (ADP), you create an account first.
• Willingness to build on the partner stack. The AssemblyAI event requires every participant to build on AssemblyAI; the BAND event requires building in BAND Desktop.
• No fixed location for online events. Online and hybrid online phases are open to builders anywhere in the world.

How to choose an event

• Pick a one-month online challenge if you want a defined deadline and a prize pool, and prefer to start whenever you register.
• Pick a multi-month program if you want sustained learning and community growth rather than a single submission — note the AMD AI Academy Challenge is individual-only.
• Pick a hybrid event if you want an online build followed by an on-site demo phase, and you can travel for the second stage.
• Pick an event with a conference tie-in if the free ticket or on-site booth access is valuable to you alongside the build itself.

All events listed on LabLab are free to attend, and the community is positioned around developers and founders shipping AI products through hackathons.