AI On Apple - Sydney Hackathon
The Sydney Mobile AI Hackathon brings together Sydney's most ambitious developers, designers, founders and creators for one intense weekend of building AI-native apps for Apple platforms.
Over the weekend, you’ll form a team, take an idea from concept to a working prototype, learn directly from experienced builders, and present your creation to a panel of founders, senior engineers, and industry partners.
Expect workshops, mentoring, great food, new collaborators and a room full of people who genuinely want to ship something remarkable.
This is not a weekend of slide decks and hypothetical ideas. It is a hands-on build sprint focused on what becomes possible when intelligence runs directly on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro.
You might build:
A private, offline experience powered by an on-device LLM or vision model
An intelligent agent or assistant that feels native to the device
A multimodal product combining voice, camera, sensors and spatial computing
An AI application that creates meaningful social or community impact
Something nobody in the room has seen before
Projects will be judged on innovation, technical craft, impact and the quality of the live demo, with an incredible prize pool across the enterprise & social-impact categories.
SCX
We're excited to announce SCX as a sponsor for the AI on Apple Sydney Hackathon! SCX is an Australian-headquartered sovereign AI infrastructure provider giving you fast inference with real savings, under your control. With support for Foundation Models in SCXSwiftKit, this is your chance to build utilising sovereign inference.
Check out SCX.ai and SCXSwiftKit today.
ElevenLabs
We’re proud to have ElevenLabs sponsoring the weekend, supporting our community of builders as they bring ambitious AI ideas to life. Whether you’re exploring voice, conversational experiences or something entirely unexpected, this is your chance to build something people will want to use.
Prizes
Hardware Prizes
2x Mac Mini - Best Enterprise Solution using AI on Apple
2x Mac Mini - Best Community/Social Good Project using AI on Apple
SCX Credit Prizes
$425 AUD SCX Credit - Per Team Member for winning teams
$1290 AUD SCX Credit - Per Team Member for Best Project built with SCX
ElevenLabs Credit Prizes
$297 USD ElevenLabs Plan (3mo/Pro) - Per Team Member for winning teams
$897 USD ElevenLabs Plan (3mo/Scale) - Per Team Member for Best Project built with ElevenLabs
And to help you build your solution, we're proud to announce that every attendee will receive:
$100 AUD SCX Credit
$22 USD Credit (via ElevenLabs Plan)
Who should apply?
You do not need to arrive with a team or a finished idea.
We are looking for:
iOS, macOS, visionOS, tvOS, AI/ML and full-stack developers
Product designers and creative technologists
Founders and independent builders
First-time hackers ready to learn
Experienced engineers ready to push the technology further
Whether you have spent years shipping Apple-platform products or are building your first serious prototype, there will be a place for you to contribute.
Schedule
Friday: 6.00 pm - 9:00 pm Pre-Event
Saturday: 10 am-8 pm Hacking Time
Sunday: 10 am - 2 pm Hacking Time
2 pm: Judging, Closing Ceremony & event wrap
Event details
23rd–25th October 2026
Sydney CBD (20 Martin Place)
In person
Attendance is application-based, so we can create a strong, balanced room of builders across engineering, product, design and AI.
Bring your Mac, your curiosity and the willingness to build fast.
Apply to join us and put intelligence in people’s pockets 🚀
(Applications will be reviewed closer to the event. Only approved applicants will be charged. Tickets are non-refundable. Approval is based on capacity and balancing the mix of beginner and advanced participants. We want to ensure we have a balanced environment to encourage participation from beginners and experts)
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Sydney Apple AI Hackathon is an independent event and is not endorsed by Apple Inc. Apple and related trademarks are the property of Apple Inc.