Video Intelligence for Media & Entertainment Hackathon
Build the Future of Media Tech Before NAB 2026
Join the leading developers, solutions architects, and engineers from across the media industry for an intensive weekend of building production-ready video intelligence solutions. This isn't about creative demos—it's about solving the complex technical challenges that define modern media workflows: search, compliance, and automation at scale.
Why This Matters: The solutions you build this weekend will inform the conversations happening at NAB 2026 just weeks later. You're not just participating in a hackathon—you're shaping the next generation of media technology infrastructure.
The Challenge: Real Problems, Real Impact
Choose your track and build solutions that address actual production bottlenecks faced by studios, broadcasters, and media platforms:
🔍 Search Track (Challenge Overview)
Transform how media companies discover and monetize content:
Moment Discovery: Find specific scenes, dialogue, or visual elements in raw and finished content as it's created—no more manual scrubbing through hours of footage
IP Intelligence: Unlock the value of massive historical libraries by understanding content at a granular level, enabling better packaging and data reselling opportunities
Automated Metadata: Replace error-prone manual tagging with scalable, scene-level taxonomies that deliver actual depth instead of surface-level tags
✂️ Segmentation Track (Challenge Overview)
Build intelligent systems that understand video structure:
Ad-Break Detection: Identify natural break points by evaluating visual, audio, and contextual signals—output timestamped boundaries ready for editorial validation
News Story Splitting: Detect story changes in news programming by analyzing speakers, topics, and visuals to create structured, timestamped segments
Content Structure Analysis: Automatically segment studio content by understanding temporal construction—identify openings, acts, transitions, credits, and editorial markers for post-production workflows
✅ Compliance Track (Challenge Overview)
Automate the most time-consuming aspects of content review:
Rules-Based Compliance: Define custom compliance frameworks (alcohol, violence, brand safety, sensitive content) and automatically identify exact moments that may breach those rules—with explanations for human validation
Brand Guidelines Enforcement: Check video assets against specific brand guidelines, detecting visual cues, actions, and context that may violate standards—surface problematic moments with clear reasoning
What You're Working With
Technology Stack
Twelve Labs Video Understanding: State-of-the-art video understanding APIs with native support for spatio-temporal analysis, semantic video search, and dynamic content segmentation
More partners followed
Twelve Labs API Documentation →
Prizes & Recognition
Total Prize Pool: $2,250 + API Credits
1st Place: $1,000 + Extended API Credits
2nd Place: $750 + Extended API Credits
3rd Place: $500 + Extended API Credits
Judging Panel: Your solutions will be evaluated by Twelve Labs leadership, partner representatives, and industry executives from major studios—the people who actually deploy these systems in production.
Event Details
📅 When: March 28-29, 2026 (Full Weekend)
📍 Where: Culver City, Los Angeles
⏰ Schedule:
Saturday, March 28
9:00 AM: Registration & Welcome Coffee
9:30 AM: Opening Keynote + Challenge Introductions
10:15 AM: Team Formation
11:00 AM: Hacking Begins
12:30 PM: Lunch + Technical Workshop
3:00 PM: Mid-point Check-in + Mentor Sessions
6:00 PM: Dinner On Your Own
Sunday, March 29
9:00 AM: Hacking Continues
12:00 PM: Lunch + Submissions Due
1:00 PM: Project Presentations (10 min each)
3:30 PM: Judging Deliberation
4:00 PM: Awards Ceremony + Closing Reception
🎯 Format: In-person, hands-on collaboration
👥 Who Should Apply: Developers, Solutions Architects, and Engineers working in media & entertainment
This is an application-based event—we're looking for technical practitioners who understand media workflows and want to build enterprise-grade solutions, not student projects.
Why Culver City?
You're building in the heart of the entertainment industry—surrounded by the studios, production facilities, and post houses that will actually use these solutions. This proximity isn't accidental: the best media tech comes from understanding production realities, not building in isolation.
Application Process
Space is limited to ensure high-quality collaboration and mentorship. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
What we're looking for:
Technical experience with video processing, ML/AI, or media workflows
Understanding of production challenges in search, segmentation, or compliance
Ability to build functional prototypes in a weekend
Interest in deploying solutions at enterprise scale
Questions? Contact james@twelvelabs.io
This is your opportunity to build the infrastructure that will power media production for the next decade. See you in Culver City.