Collaborative Agent Hackathon
Build open agents that work together
Wednesday, 26 August 2026
9:30 am–7:00 pm
Department of Computer Science and Technology
University of Cambridge
The Collaborative Agent Hackathon is a one-day event for building open-source, collaborative AI agents using Flower.
Agents are changing what is possible, and their greatest potential emerges when they collaborate safely in human-supervised multi-agent teams.
Participants will form teams on the day, develop a working prototype and present it at the end of the event. Each team will explore how open-source collaborative agents of varying complexity can work together safely.
You do not need an existing team or a fully developed idea. Bring your laptop, your interests and a willingness to collaborate.
The hackathon challenge
Build an open-source agent or multi-agent system using Flower in which the safe collaboration of agent teams is central to the solution.
Projects can range across the full collaborative spectrum. Multiple agents might:
Automate a task
Form self-improving loops with one another
Operate across distributed machines and datasets
Flower is built together with an open-source community spanning more than 7k users world-wide. Flower simplifies building multi-agent systems, supporting distributed coordination, collaborative learning and inference, and privacy-aware deployment.
Projects from all industries and application areas are welcome — including scientific research, healthcare, finance, education, public services, software development and entirely new forms of human-agent collaboration.
Team formation
Participants register individually.
Teams of two to four people will be formed during the morning, unless formed earlier. The organisers will help participants find teammates with complementary interests and experience.
Already know your team? Please provide your teammates’ names when registering.
Bringing an idea is optional.
Eligibility: Everyone is welcome, including builders from startups and companies, as well as students, researchers, and postdocs from all universities.
Awards
Awards will be presented at the end of the day to recognise outstanding projects and contributions.
Further details about prizes and the selection process will be shared before the event.
Schedule
9:30–10:00 — Opening, check-in and breakfast
Meet other participants and share your interests and experience.
10:00–10:15 — Welcome
Introduction to the event, the challenge and the day’s practical arrangements.
10:15–10:45 — Collaborative agents with Flower
A technical introduction covering collaborative agent architectures, safe coordination, self-improvement loops and the available Flower resources.
10:45–11:00 — Team formation
Meet potential collaborators and form teams of two to four, unless your team was formed earlier.
11:00–12:45 — Build session
Define the project, design the agent interactions and begin implementation.
12:45–1:30 — Lunch and mentor office hours
1:30–5:15 — Build session
Develop and test the system, refine the collaboration or self-improvement loop and prepare the demonstration. Mentors will be available throughout.
5:15–5:30 — Demo preparation
5:30–6:45 — Project demonstrations
Teams present their projects, followed by brief questions.
6:45–7:00 — Awards and closing remarks