ELIGIBILITY
- Open to students, recent graduates, and early-career developers. At least 80% of participants will be students; non-student spots are limited.
- Participants must be physically present at the venue in Baku on November 28, 2026.
- Teams of 2-4 people. Team members may be from different universities or backgrounds.
- Organizers and judges may not compete for prizes.

PROJECTS
- All project code must be written during the hackathon (11:00-19:30, November 28, 2026).
- Using open-source libraries, frameworks, public APIs, pre-trained models, and public datasets is allowed and must be credited.
- Each team may submit one project.
- Projects must be submitted on Devpost before 19:30 on November 28, 2026. Late submissions will not be judged.
- Code freeze: no commits to your repository after 19:30 on November 28. Judges will check commit history. You may prepare your demo and pitch before judging at 20:00 on November 28, but not change the project code.

JUDGING
Projects are judged equally on:
- Use of AI/ML: is AI the right tool for this problem, and is it used meaningfully in the application?
- Technical Execution: does the app work? Code quality, API integration, and architectural stability.
- Creativity & Originality: how unique is the idea, user experience, or approach?
- Impact & Practicality: does it solve a real problem? Are limitations and risks understood?
- Presentation & Demo: how clearly was the working app demoed live to the judges?
Judges' decisions are final.

Judging criteria may be refined before the event. Final criteria will be announced to registered participants before November 25.

CODE OF CONDUCT
All participants, mentors, judges, and organizers must follow the MLH Code of Conduct: https://mlh.io/code-of-conduct
Harassment or disrespectful behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Violations may result in removal from the event and disqualification. To report an issue, contact any organizer on site or email [email protected].

Be respectful, have fun, and help each other learn!