Dates
Hackathon: Friday, November 13, 2026, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Submissions open at 9:30 AM when the build begins and close at 5:00 PM. Demos start at 5:30 PM, and winners are announced at 8:00 PM.
Eligibility
Open to currently enrolled students at Georgia State University Perimeter College, GSU Atlanta, Georgia Tech, KSU and other schools across georgia. Participants must attend in person. Teams must have 2 to 4 members, and each person may join only one team. Members of the organizing team and judges may not compete for prizes.
Project and Submission Requirements
Projects must be built during the event. You may use open source libraries, frameworks, APIs, and AI coding assistants as long as you credit them in your submission and the core idea and work are your team's own. One submission per team. Submissions must be original and must not violate anyone's intellectual property. Projects must be submitted on Devpost by 5:00 PM on November 13, and teams must give a live demo to qualify for judging.
Prizes
A $1,000 cash prize pool will be awarded to the top three teams: $500 for first place, $300 for second place, and $200 for third place. The top three teams will also receive on site interviews at the end of the day. Prizes are awarded to teams, and each team decides how to share its prize.
Judging Criteria and Winner Selection
A panel of judges from our partner companies will score each team after the live demos, using these five criteria equally:
- Innovation: how original is the idea?
- Technical execution: does it work, and how well is it built?
- Impact: would it help real people?
- Theme: how well does it fit Escape from Earth?
- Pitch: is the demo clear and compelling for 1 minute?
Each criterion is scored from 1 to 10, and the three teams with the highest total scores win. If there is a tie, the judges will decide by discussion. The judges' decisions are final.