Pillar 01 — the main hack
Every team picks one track and one challenge statement inside it. Tracks are set with our partners and the full challenge statements are published on 9 October — the themes below are the working plan.
Problems that matter to the city itself: the port, the coast, transport, climate and infrastructure. Build tools a resident, a council officer or a port operator could actually use, on real public data about Southampton.
Suits · Messy data, maps, sensors and public services — and building for a person rather than a leaderboard.
Real problems in money: scams, fraud networks, small-business cash flow, and the people the financial system underserves. Everything runs on synthetic data — nobody touches a real customer record.
Suits · Data science and graph skills, and products a bank or a wallet app could actually ship.
Ship it safe. Build something useful and prove it is safe, fair and explainable, with the test results to show for it. The bar is evidence, not intention.
Suits · Evaluation, testing, security and governance.
Announced with the full challenge statements on 9 October.
How it plays
Five criteria per track
Each scored out of ten and tailored to the track. Every track includes Working demo — if it doesn't run, it doesn't count.
Round one · demo fair
Sunday 13:00. Every submitted team is seen at its table by the track's judges. Demo the working thing, then answer questions.
Round two · stage pitches
The top two teams per track pitch on the main stage. Three minutes to demo, two for questions.
The prizes
One winner per track, one overall winner, partner prizes, and People's Choice — decided by VC for a Day. Amounts are announced before the event.