Building for the Real World Hackathon
Building for the Real World
Hosted by Operators & Friends, Build and Pebblebed.
Manifesto
We’ve optimized the digital world to death.
Now it’s time to turn that same energy outward - into cities, factories, grids, and machines.
AI can finally move atoms, not just pixels.
This is the greatest moment in decades to build for the real world - and the builders who do will define the new world.
Hack
6-hour sprint to prototype AI and tech solutions for the physical world - geospatial, robotics, construction, hardware, infrastructure, logistics, and beyond.
100 handpicked engineers, founders, and builders
We provide the space, the credits, and the fuel.
You bring the unreasonable ideas.
Format
4PM-10PM @ Pebblebed Warehouse, SF
4:00 - Arrivals
4:30 - Kick-off
4:30-9:00 - Build
9:00-10:00 - Demos, judging & celebration
Jury members
Tammie Siew - Pebblebed
James Stirrat-Ellis - Build
Hameed Khandahari - Build
Ilan Bigio - OpenAI
Gagan Bhat - Anthropic
Powered by
Daytona, fal, Lovable, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Vidoc Security Lab, Datalab & Black Forest Labs
All participants will receive free credits from our partners.
The Space
Everything happens inside Pebblebed, a warehouse-turned-playground for builders - with projection walls, open concrete floors, and enough power, snacks, and caffeine to keep ideas alive.
Prizes - >$30,000 in credit pool for winners🥇
ElevenLabs
3 months Pro tier
Best Build with ElevenLabs - 6 months Scale tier ($1980)
Daytona
$5000, $3000, and $1000 in Daytona credits
Best Use of Daytona - $5000 in credits
fal
$5000 credit prize
Lovable
6 & 3 months free Pro tier
OpenAI
$3000, $2000, and $1000 in OpenAI credits
Black Forest Labs
$4000 in BFL credits
About Build
At Build, our mission is to accelerate and amplify the world's most important built projects - we have invented a better way to build through a collaboration between human experts and agentic AI.
We believe in a future where the world's buildings are driven from concept to completion, autonomously. Without delays, cost, and complexity. Enabling people to deliver a magnitude more deals. To make decisions, build relationships and create.
To start, we're partnering with the world's biggest built world institutions to push the frontier of what's possible through automating mission-critical workflows.
About Operators & Friends
Operators & Friends accelerates the next generation of builders emerging with access to talent, distribution, and funding.
We've gathered +6,000 company builders and backed 18 teams alongside a16z, Index, Google Ventures and Lightspeed and many more - our portfolio.
About Pebblebed
Pebblebed is an early stage technical VC for builders, by builders. The founding partners are Pam Vagata, founding member at OpenAI; Keith Adams, founder of FAIR; and Tammie Siew, former Sequoia & GGV-backed founder.