About the challenge
The 2026 STEMEd AI Hackathon is a global student competition open to students aged 13+ hosted collaboratively by four youth-led organizations: Cyberwave Hackathon, DeltaForge Hacks, NextHorizon, and STEMise.
Theme: AI x STEM Education
This event brings together young innovators from around the world to reimagine the future of STEM education through artificial intelligence.
Participants will work individually or in teams to design and develop a meaningful technical product that leverages AI to improve, enhance, or expand STEM education. Projects may range from machine learning tools that personalize learning pathways to computer vision systems for laboratory simulations, to AI-driven platforms that increase accessibility for underrepresented communities. Creativity, feasibility, technical depth, and real-world impact will be central to evaluation.
The theme of this competition is to create tools that help students learn STEM more effectively, interactively, and accessibly. These tools can be an app, a website, a simulation, a system, or an algorithm.
Participants are allowed to use AI to encourage them to build a meaningful solution in the realm of STEM education and to lower the technical barrier that imposes challenges for beginners with ambitious project ideas.
Get Started
Ask around and form a team! We highly recommend finding like-minded individuals around you to help make your ideas a reality!
Please join these Discord servers: DeltaForge Hacks & STEMise! You may very well find your new team!
Requirements
Submission Requirements
Project: Can be a website, app, or other coding prototypes that have user interaction capabilities. Hardware components are allowed if there is a coding component present along with them.
Demo Video: Video explaining the purpose of the project, showcasing project features, and demonstrating how users interact with the prototype.
One Page Project Description in PDF format: A page describing the project purpose and key features.
Github Repository / Code PDF: PDF document showcasing all code developed towards the creation of the project.
Prizes
1st Place
CodeCrafters 2 Year VIP Membership ($720)
2nd Place
CodeCrafters 1 Year VIP Membership ($360)
3rd Place
CodeCrafters 6 Month VIP Membership ($180)
Participation Prize
Ideavo Pro Plan (50% off)
Participation Certificate
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
DeltaForge Team
Team with Strong Computer Science Knowledge
STEMise Team
Team Passionate about STEM and Innovation
Sohil Shah
Staff Software Engineer, PayPal
Lovleen Kaur
Software Engineer, Cisco Systems
Avaneesh Desai
Senior Frontend Engineer, Highspot
Jaikumar Banthia
Software Development Manager, Amazon Web Services
Fenil Shah
Senior Software Engineer, Amazon
Himanshu Aseeja
Principal Architect & Vice President, Citizens Bank
Praneetha Kotla
Lead Robotic Process Automation Developer, ERP Smartlabs
Sharan Babu ParamasivamMurugesan
Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft
Parth Rana
Assistant Vice President, State Street
Suraj Devatha
Senior Software Engineer, Meta
Danil Matrosov
Founder & CEO, Octery
Judging Criteria
-
Idea
Did the proposal address the problem statement and theme? Was the idea innovative? How much potential impact could this proposal have if deployed to the public? -
Implementation
Does the solution work? Did the team achieve everything they wanted? How technically challenging/impressive was the implementation? -
Design
Did the team put thought into the user experience? How well designed is the interface? -
Presentation
Does the presentation clearly define and address the problem statement?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
Invite others to compete
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