Build North: Ship Something Real 🍁
One sprint. One challenge. Ship something with a clear user, a clear value-add and a credible path to production. The top 10 teams will demo live on stage, and winners take home prizes across 4 award categories! 🏆
We are bringing together some of Canada's most ambitious AI builders for a virtual AI build sprint, followed by an in person Demo Day in Toronto for the top 10 teams. Rally your team (or join solo), pick a problem that actually matters and ship the idea you've been thinking about all year, with hands-on technical support from our partner teams along the way. This could be your shot at turning it into a real business with real momentum!
Winners walk away with prizes, API credits, merch, and a golden ticket from Georgian: a pitch session with experienced investors and a warm intro to an early-stage fund.
Who Should Join
Builders creating AI products, agentic tools and ambitious side projects.
Teams up to 4 (solo welcome)
Open to all builders across Canada, from students to senior engineers
All members must be 18 or older, and at least one team member must be available to demo live in Toronto if selected for the top 10
Starter Package
Every team, including solo builders, gets access to:
Starter templates and resources
Partner credits and perks, including $100 in Anthropic API credits per member
Hands on support from partner teams throughout Build Week
Packages go out at kickoff on October 16. The hackathon Discord server will be our main communication hub for registration details, kickoff updates, submission instructions, and everything else you need throughout the event.
Timeline
Registration (Closes Oct 16) — Virtual
Every participant registers individually, with team captains submitting the project idea and team details (solo builders can list themselves as captain). Final teams of up to 4 must be confirmed by kickoff on Oct 16.
Build Week (Oct 16 – Oct 25) — Virtual
Kickoff + tutorials Oct 16 at 12 PM ET; submissions due Oct 25 at 11:59 PM ET
Online Judging (Oct 26) — Virtual
Top 10 announced and notified on Oct 26
Demo Day (Oct 29) — In person
Live demos + winner announcements, 5:30–8:30 PM ET (detailed agenda announced after submissions)
What You'll Submit:
The following are required for submission:
A demo video up to 2 minutes (shareable link, no login) showing what you built, how it works and the key technology behind it
A public GitHub repository plus a live link (deployed app, App Store, test build) if applicable
A Devpost project page covering your project description, tech stack, partner platforms used and any prior work or scaffolding
Submissions will be through Devpost and are due October 25 at 11:59 PM ET. Detailed instructions will be shared in the hackathon Discord community after kickoff.
Judging Criteria
A panel of judges will assess submissions in two rounds: online judging on Oct 26 to select the top 10, followed by live judging at Demo Day on Oct 29 to pick the final winners.
Innovation: going beyond the obvious solutions and applications
Real-World Impact: clear user, value-add, and a path to production
UI & Design: usable by a real user, thoughtful and effective UI elements
Tech & Deployment: solid architecture, thoughtful tech choices, and working features.
Security & Ethics: responsible applications, guardrails, and safe handling of user data
Prizes
🏆 Best Overall: A Georgian Golden Ticket (investor pitch session + warm fund intro), a Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) per member, $15,000 in Anthropic API credits for the team, plus partner perks and swag
🎨 Best Use of Expo: LG 27" Gaming Monitor per member, 1 year of Expo Starter (including $45/month in build credits), and an Expo swag box
🔐 Best Use of Clerk: JBL Tune 770NC per member, 50% off Clerk Pro for the first year, plus Clerk swag box
💾 Best Use of Eon: Prizes to be announced soon!
Judges
Our judges bring deep experience across AI, product, engineering and business to evaluate your submissions.
Margaret Wu, Lead Investor @ Georgian
Seth Webster, Chief Developer Evangelist @ Expo, Former Head of React @ Meta
Deval Pandya, CEO & Founder @ Autoinference, Former VP of AI Engineering @ Vector Institute
More to be announced soon!
Mentors
Our mentors will be hands-on throughout Build Week to help with technical questions, product direction, and troubleshooting.
Barry Xue, ML Scientist II @ Layer 6 AI
Azin Asgarian, AI Technical Lead @ Georgian
Xintong Li, Data Scientist @ Thomson Reuters
Aryan Khurana, AI Developer Advocate @ Georgian
Rami Maalouf, Developer Success Engineer @ Expo
More to be announced soon!
Rules
Follow the Build North Code of Conduct
Build meaningful new work during Build Week
Use partner platforms meaningfully to qualify for awards
Disclose any prior work, templates, or scaffolding
Submit only one project per team
Keep confidential or sensitive information out of submissions
FAQs
Do I own the code I write during the hackathon? Yes. You retain ownership of your IP and code.
Is the hackathon in-person or virtual? The hackathon runs online, with an in-person demo day for the top 10 teams.
Can I register solo, or do I need a team? You can register solo as team captain and add teammates later. Final teams of up to 4 must be confirmed by kickoff on October 16.
How does registration work? Registration is individual and required for everyone. Each participant must fill out the Luma form, and all team members' names must be listed on the final Devpost submission.
Is travel covered for Demo Day? Teams selected for the top 10 are responsible for their own travel and accommodation. At least one team member must attend and demo in person in Toronto on October 29.
Still have questions? Join the hackathon Discord server or reach out to Aryan Khurana (AI Developer Advocate @ Georgian) at aryan@georgian.io.
Partners
Georgian Transferred Learnings
Transferred Learnings is Georgian's technical community for AI builders and founders who are actively shipping AI products and want to stay ahead of the field. Through in-person events and Discord, members ideate, build and connect. Interested in joining? Apply here.
TAPNET
Toronto AI Practitioners Network (TAPNET) was founded in 2024 to provide high-quality content and networking opportunities for AI practitioners in Toronto. We have an active community of members and host regular in-person events. Follow us on LinkedIn, Meetup or Luma.
EXPO
Expo is a full-stack React Native framework with cloud services that cover the whole app lifecycle. Developers build with the Expo SDK's 100+ production APIs, the CLI, and dev tools, then ship with Build, Update, and Workflows: compile for iOS, Android, and web from one codebase, push over-the-air updates without an app store round trip, and automate builds, tests, and releases.
From first prototype to production monitoring, Expo helps teams move faster at every stage of the app lifecycle.
Clerk
Clerk is the complete user management platform for modern web and mobile applications. They give developers everything they need to build secure, polished authentication and user experiences without spending weeks building identity infrastructure from scratch.
With Clerk, teams can easily add authentication, user profiles, organizations, multi-factor authentication, social logins, user management, and session management, all with flexible APIs, components, and SDKs built for modern frameworks.
From startups to growing teams, Clerk makes it easier to ship faster, scale securely, and give users a seamless way to sign up, sign in, and manage their accounts.
Google Cloud for Startups
Google Cloud for Startups helps AI founders scale from idea to IPO with the world’s most advanced open infrastructure. We provide eligible startups with up to $350,000 USD in Google Cloud credits over two years, dedicated access to high-performance TPU and GPU clusters, and direct technical support from our AI Customer Engineers. Whether you are fine-tuning foundational models or building complex agentic workflows, Google Cloud provides the infrastructure, Gemini models, and Vertex AI tools you need to build quickly and securely. Learn more and apply today.