TechTO x Althra Hackathon: Vancouver
Build AI that remembers. 10 hours. From 9 am to 7 pm.
Most AI hackathons hand you an API key and good luck. Ours hands you a memory layer that's #1 on the LoCoMo benchmark.
Every hacker gets full access to Backboard.io - an AI API built for hackathon teams who want production-grade memory, state, and tooling without building infrastructure from scratch. What that gets you:
One stateful API to 17,000+ LLMs - no key juggling, no rate limits to babysit
Long-term memory at 90%+ on benchmarks - your demo will actually remember
RAG, web search, and custom tools all built in
LLM routing and memory orchestration handled for you
The theme: Build AI that remembers.
On the day we celebrate mothers who remember everything for us - birthdays, allergies, fears, what you said you wanted three months ago - you build something that does the same. For your mom, for someone else, for yourself, for the world.
A journaling AI. A personal assistant. A relationship coach. A family archive. A workplace agent that actually learns you. A coordinator for the mental load nobody sees. Whatever you want - as long as it remembers.
The bar isn't memory as a feature. It's: what if your AI knew you the way someone who loves you does?
Who this is for: high schoolers, university students, first-time shippers, and tech operators who want to build something stateful. All skill levels. If you've never shipped before, now is the time.
Come solo or with a team - just bring your passion and curiosity!
You leave with:
A working AI app with persistent memory
Direct feedback from judges who've shipped real products
A project you can continue building on Monday
A small group of builders you'll actually remember and can stay connected with
Amazing cash prize up to $1,000 CAD and in-kind perks!
Agenda
9:00am: Doors open, check in and breakfast
9:45am: Welcome and walkthrough + theme briefing
10:00am - 5:00pm: Hackathon time! Lunch will be provided at 12:00pm
5:00pm - 5:30pm: Judges calibration and voting + Pizza time
(Your Moms are welcome to join!)
5:30pm - 6:30pm: Top 3 teams demo to the judge panel
6:30pm - 7:00pm: Awards & Celebration
Thank You To Our Sponsor
Judges
Paul Chuang Li is a two-time AI founder. A Waterloo CS grad, he's currently CEO and Co-Founder of OpenBuilder (YC F25), an AI app builder for internal tools. Before that, he co-founded EasyCode, one of the earliest AI coding assistants, which scaled to 1.5M installs and answered 15M coding questions.
Aaron Cullen is a YC backed AI founder. A Yale graduate, he is currently the CEO and Co-founder of Mendelia (YC P26), a care access platform for surgical practices. Before Mendelia, he joined Brellium as a founding employee and scaled their GTM function across multiple healthcare specialties.
Raj is co-founder and CTO of Infinite (YC W25), a San Francisco fintech building AI native global payments infrastructure for businesses. Infinite ships stablecoin rails, virtual accounts, and agentic compliance tooling. A Waterloo grad and fellow Canadian, Raj is always looking to give back to the community.
Kaz started coding at 11 by building Minecraft mods, then launched his first game at 15 and grew it to over 150,000 users. Since then, he has built a portfolio of consumer apps and newsletters that have generated more than $550K in revenue.
He is now building Kazuo, the “SHEIN for consumer software” — a factory that uses short-form content signals to identify what people want, rapidly builds apps with AI in days, and distributes them at scale through viral short-form content. To date, the company has reached $460K in annual recurring revenue and over 300,000 users.