Global AI Hackathon
For the first time, the Coachella Valley is joining the global AI Tinkerers builder community.
On Saturday, September 12, developers, founders, researchers, designers, and technical builders here in the desert will build alongside AI Tinkerers communities around the world in one shared global hackathon powered by OpenAI, with OpenRouter, CopilotKit, AICV, ERC and the AI Tinkerers community.
The challenge: move AI beyond the chatbot.
Build a working agent that lives where people already work, communicate, and get things done — inside software, browsers, messaging, mobile, voice, physical spaces, or somewhere we haven’t thought of yet.
If you’ve been quietly noodling on an AI project, prototype, side hustle, agent, strange little tool, half-finished repo, or startup idea, dust it off.
Bring it.
Come with a team, come solo, or meet collaborators in the room. If you’ve never participated in a hackathon before, that’s completely fine. If you have, bring your scar tissue.
This is a builders’ day, not a conference or AI 101 workshop. We’ll spend the day building, testing, breaking things, fixing them, sharing what worked, and shipping something we can actually show.
APPLY HERE: LINK
What to expect
10:00–10:30 — Doors open, check-in, food + meet potential teammates
10:30–11:00 — Global opening video + starter kit
11:00–11:15 — Team formation
11:15–3:30 — Build (and working lunch)
3:30–4:30 — Local show-and-tell
4:30–5:00 — Global submission + wrap
Every team finishes with a working project, public GitHub repo, short description and two-minute demo for submission to the global review and prize process. There is no formal local judging.
Who should apply:
Engineers, developers, technical founders, researchers, designers, data and systems people, and anyone actively prototyping or shipping with AI.
If you’ve been building quietly in the Coachella Valley, we want to find you.
📍 ERC, Palm Desert
📅 Saturday, September 12, 2026
🕙 10 AM–5 PM PDT
🍴 Food + drinks provided
🎟️ Attendance is application-based and space is limited.
Powered globally by OpenAI. Built locally in the Coachella Valley.