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Global Virtual Hackathon 2026

Build it, then defend it. A free, international online hackathon for students aged 14 to 18, hosted by Canadian International School, Singapore. Teams build a working project under a sealed challenge, then defend it in a personalised, on-camera interview drawn from their own code. Finalists defend it again, live, before the judges.

On this page: key facts, prizes, how it works, timeline, theme, judging, judges, rules, registering, teachers, safeguarding and privacy, questions, legal documents, contact.

Key facts

Prizes and recognition

Each division, Junior and Senior, awards its own prizes. All amounts are in US dollars.

Only first place and the runner-ups carry cash. Each team is listed once, at the highest level it reached, and the sizes of the shortlist and longlist are not fixed. Results are published on the results page and announced at the closing ceremony on 9 December 2026. Every winning project is a public repository that its team can point to on a university application.

How prizes are paid. A prize goes to the team and is shared equally among its members unless the team agrees otherwise. Cash prizes are paid in US dollars by bank transfer once the organisers have verified the winning team. Because the students are minors, the money goes to a parent or guardian, or to the team's school, nominated by the team to pass on each member's share. Any taxes, fees or charges are the recipient's responsibility. Employees, contractors and judges of the organiser, and their immediate family, cannot win prizes. The organiser may decline to award a prize if no eligible entry meets the standard.

How it works

  1. Register your team. Sign up once with a shared team account. List your 2 to 4 members and name a supervising teacher.
  2. Get confirmed. Your teacher confirms your roster and uploads each member's signed consent form, and the organisers approve your teacher.
  3. Build under the brief. The challenge is revealed at the opening ceremony. You have seven days to build and submit a working project.
  4. Present your work. Answer a personalised on-camera Q&A. Finalists are invited to a live interview with the judges.

Round 1: the project

A working, publicly accessible project, a public source-code repository, a written project page and a short demo video, submitted by 23:59 AoE on 25 November. It must be the team's own original work, built during the event under the challenge. Open-source components and third-party tools are fine if you have the right to use them and follow their licences.

Round 2: the recorded interview

The whole team answers on camera together, in one continuous take, with every member visible throughout. The questions are written in advance from the team's own submission and source code, so they are grounded in the decisions the team made, and they climb from a warm-up to a genuine stretch. They are held on the organisers' servers and released one at a time, in order, only once recording has begun. A team records up to 10 minutes of answers inside a 40-minute window to read the instructions, record and submit, and gets one attempt. If a dropped connection, illness or another problem outside your control stops your team, email organisers@gvhackathon.com as soon as you can, and the organisers may allow another attempt. If a team member needs a reasonable adjustment, tell the organisers before your window opens.

Round 3: the live final

Finalists, nine teams per division, have a live video interview with the judges. More than one adult from the organisers is present throughout, and no judge meets a team alone. It is not recorded. A team's supervising teacher, or a parent or guardian, can attend as an observer if they ask beforehand.

Timeline

Deadlines close at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth, UTC-12). A deadline has not passed until the date is over everywhere on the planet, so no team loses hours to its timezone. The same moment in UTC is given in brackets.

2026 theme: Unveiling Technology

So much of what we use every day goes unquestioned, and is barely understood by the people who depend on it most. The challenge is to take one piece of it and make it genuinely understandable to someone who has never thought to ask how it works.

The theme is public. The specific challenge is sealed until the opening ceremony on 19 November, so no team can build ahead. The full brief appears on the site when the event starts.

How judging works and how it stays fair

Judges

These are the people who run and judge the event.

Leadership team

Judging panel

The wider panel that scores teams alongside the leadership team.

A wider group of judges and organisers helps run and score the event, and not all of them are listed here. Before anyone joins the panel, the organisers check their identity and professional background, the school runs its own safeguarding checks, and the judge accepts written confidentiality terms, as the Safeguarding Statement sets out.

Rules in brief

The full rules are in the Terms of Participation.

How to register

Registration runs on this site from 28 September to 23:59 AoE on 13 November 2026, and needs JavaScript. A team signs up once, at gvhackathon.com/signup, under one shared account. It lists its 2 to 4 members with their names, ages and contact emails, the name and email of each member's parent or guardian, and a supervising teacher. The teacher then confirms the team and uploads each member's signed consent form, and the team cannot submit its project until every form is in.

For supervising teachers

You confirm that the students on the team are who they say they are, are the right ages (14 to 18), and are normally at your school. You are the named adult who vouches for the team. You do not run the event or mark the work.

  1. Follow the link the organisers email you and sign in, or create a teacher account.
  2. Collect a signed parental or guardian consent form for every member of the team, and keep your own copy. The team prints each one from its portal with the details filled in.
  3. In your dashboard, accept the Supervising Teacher Agreement, then upload each student's signed form.
  4. Confirm the team.

That takes a few minutes. After that you are the point of contact: you raise any safeguarding concern promptly, handle the students' details responsibly, and encourage honest work. The students build the project themselves over seven days in November and sit their interviews online. You are a point of accountability, not a mentor or a marker. More on the page for teachers.

Safeguarding and privacy

The students taking part are aged 14 to 18, and the event is built around that. Contact runs through the portal and organiser email rather than private channels, judges are vetted before joining, the Round 2 interview is recorded, and the live final always has more than one organiser present.

Common questions

Who can enter?

Students aged 14 to 18 at any school worldwide, in teams of 2 to 4.

Which division are we in?

Junior is ages 14 to 15 and Senior is 16 to 18. Your division is set by your oldest member, so if anyone on the team is 16 or over, the whole team enters Senior.

How much does it cost?

Nothing. Entry is free.

Do we need a teacher?

Yes. Every team names a supervising teacher at a member's school, who confirms the team. Send them the page for teachers, which explains what that involves. If no teacher at your school can do it, email organisers@gvhackathon.com before registration closes. We can make exceptions at our discretion in extenuating circumstances.

Does the team need to be together in person?

For the Round 2 interview, yes. Your whole team is recorded together on camera in one continuous take, so every member must be in the same place, on a computer, at that time. You can build the project however you like before then. If that is genuinely impossible for someone on your team, email organisers@gvhackathon.com before registration closes. We can make exceptions at our discretion in extenuating circumstances.

Is it one account per team?

Yes. A team signs up once with a shared account and lists its members. There are no separate per-student logins.

What do we build?

A working project under a sealed challenge revealed at the opening ceremony. Your project code repository must be public.

How is it judged?

Your project is judged on the product and its code, a personalised on-camera Q&A, and, if you make it through, a live interview with the judges. Human judges make every decision.

Is AI allowed, and how do you keep it fair?

Building with AI tools is allowed and expected. What we check is that the work is yours and that you understand it, which is exactly what the on-camera interview tests. See how we keep it fair.

When does it run?

Registration opens 28 September 2026 and closes at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth) on 13 November. The challenge is revealed at the opening ceremony on 19 November, which opens the build window at the start of that day AoE, and submissions close 23:59 AoE on 25 November. That is seven days for every team, wherever they are.

There are six. Two are forms that someone has to sign before a team can take part, and the other four set out the rules and explain how the people taking part, and the information they give, are looked after. Each has a version and a date at the bottom, and the version a team accepted is stored with its registration.

Contact

Organisers: organisers@gvhackathon.com. Safeguarding lead: ruchika.dutt@cis.edu.sg.

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