Dates

All projects must be submitted between July 9th and August 9th, 2026. 

Eligibility

This hackathon is open to high school students ages 13–18. Participants may work individually or in teams of up to 4 people.

Project and Submission Requirements

Projects must connect to the local community impact theme by addressing a real problem affecting a school, neighborhood, family, club, nonprofit, small business, public space, or community group. Projects may be apps, websites, tools, AI projects, physical gadgets, design prototypes, or other technology-based solutions.

AI tools are allowed and encouraged. Teams will not lose points for using AI. However, teams must disclose how they used AI and must be able to explain their project. Teams must credit major outside resources, including APIs, datasets, open-source code, templates, tutorials, and AI-generated work.

Projects must not collect private or sensitive information from real students, teachers, families, or community members without permission. Projects must not promote harm, cheating, harassment, illegal activity, or unsafe behavior.

Judges may ask teams questions about what they built, why they built it, and how it works.

Prizes

The main prizes are the 2026 CSC Impact Awards, which recognize the top 3 overall projects that best address a real local need through thoughtful, useful, and well-executed technology. In addition, the next 5 top teams will receive Honorable Mentions.

To be eligible for a CSC Impact Award, teams must opt in during submission. Opting in means the team agrees to make the project publicly viewable or open source after submission, such as through a GitHub repository, website, demo link, design file, or public project page.

Opting in also means CSC may feature the project on CSC’s Instagram, website, club materials, or other CSC-related channels. CSC may share the project name, team name, screenshots, demo links, and a short description of the project. Personal photos, individual student names, or other identifying information will only be shared when appropriate permission is given.

CSC may contact winning teams after the event to discuss opportunities to help share, promote, or expand the project’s reach beyond the hackathon, such as through school communities, student groups, or other relevant environments. Any additional collaboration or promotion beyond CSC’s own channels will be discussed with the team first.

Opting in does not transfer ownership of the project to CSC. Creators keep ownership of their work.

Prize distribution may require follow-up communication with the winning team. If needed, CSC may ask for appropriate contact information or parent/guardian support to distribute prizes safely.

Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Projects will be judged based on the criteria listed on this Devpost page: Learning, Design, Creativity, Functionality, and Impact.

Judges will consider how clearly the team explains the problem, how useful the project could be, how well the prototype demonstrates the idea, how thoughtfully the team used technology, and how well the team understands what they built.

AI use is allowed and will not lower a team’s score, but teams must disclose how they used AI and be able to explain the final project.