Local AI Hackathon: Own Your AI

Cornell's First True Local AI Hackathon

Local AI models have grown increasingly powerful; the frontier of yesterday can run on your laptop today without the need for a power-hungry data center.

About

We've teamed up with some of the most exciting companies in the space to challenge builders to make an incredible AI-powered app that runs entirely offline. Here's what we're building with:

Bonsai 2 2B, 4B, and 9B: The highest intelligence density model in the world, compressing each weight into 1.5 bits

Argmax OSS: On-device SDK for frontier speech recognition, generation and speaker recognition

LM Studio: The easiest way to experiment with local and open models

Judging will be based on several tracks that are announced day-of, however this is otherwise an open build event. Outside of using the LLM and speech sponsors, you are free to build whatever AI-powered solution you please. Replace your AI note-taker, build a tutor, make your alarm clock personally roast you, the world is your oyster.

Several days before the event, a Discord server will be created to help with team formation. This server will also have engineers from our sponsors who you can reach out to at any point.

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded to the three winning teams with two smaller prizes for specific tracks

First Place: M6 Mac Minis, sponsored by Argmax Inc. and PrismML

Second Place: $350 gift cards

Third Place: $100 gift cards

Best Sustainability (Sponsored by Cornell University Sustainable Computing Working Group): $100 total for the best app coded entirely using open models. It is up to the participants to prove this

Judges Choice: $100 total for the judges favorite app/demo

Locally Made: $100 total for the best app coded entirely using open models. It is up to the participants to prove this

Best Robotics: $100 total for the best app that helps with computer use. Cornell Physical Intelligence Club will be providing SO-ARM100 that will allow several teams to build with embodied intelligence (on a first-come-first-serve basis)

Winners are mutually exclusive, so no team can win more than one prize. Winners will be decided by a panel of judges including Cornell professors and employees at sponsoring companies.

Teams

You can either participate solo or in a group of two. This is a hard limit because there are only two of each prize.

If you somehow end up in a group of more than two (highly not recommended), then you must figure out how prizes will be split. Any arguments over ownership will result in a forfeited prize for the entire time.

Coding

No coding plan required! LM Studio Bionic will be providing $100 in credits to all participants (also usable after the event) to use open models like DeepSeek and Kimi K3 for free for the duration of the event.

Hiring

Bring a resume! LM Studio and Argmax Inc. may be interested in hiring talented builders.

Schedule

Saturday, November 14th

11:00am - 11:30am: Check-in

11:30am - 11:45am: Welcome ceremony

11:45am - 12:15pm: Introduction to challenges and getting started with tools. Speakers from PrismML and Argmax, Inc.

12:15pm-12:30pm: Sendoff, building begins

Sunday, November 15th

Submissions due at noon, meet back at Gates

11:00am - 12:00pm: Judging period, decide top 10 teams for live demos

12:15pm - 1pm: Live demos

1:00pm - 1:30pm: Final judging period

1:30pm - 2:00pm: Final winners announced, closing ceremony

Media Notice

By showing up, you are agreeing to be featured or included in media that may be published by event organizers or sponsors.