Join forces with fellow students to collaborate, innovate, and drive positive social change. Over this intensive 48-hour weekend hackathon, you will engineer AI solutions to tackle unique data-driven problems impacting the Youth Resilience and Wellbeing social issue. Armed with raw multimedia datasets provided by our partners, it is your turn to build the code to right the world.

As a participant, you will receive direct mentorship from expert data scientists and professionals representing The Performance Academy, Dreams Come True, The Link, UNF, and leading technology companies in Jacksonville. Following final pitches, three finalist teams will be selected and announced as winners during the official AI for Good award ceremony. Top-performing teams will also earn the exclusive opportunity to work with data science experts at FL-DSSG to bring their AI solutions to life after the event.

Join our hackathon, build your team, ask questions, and engage with industry mentors to make a tangible impact!

In preparation for the hackathon, we encourage you to focus on one of these two problem cases related to the Youth Resilience and Wellbeing issue:

Problem Case #1: Build an AI solutions pipeline to track unique individuals across long event videos, mapping their occurrence frequency, specific performing arts actions, and emotional expressions.

Problem Case #2: Build an AI-powered image repository and retrieval system to automatically caption, tag, and organize large collections of photos captured across multiple events.

Food and beverages (brain fuel) will be provided during the event.

Hackathon Location:

The Link

Address: 425 Town Plaza Ave, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32081

The Link fosters creativity, productivity, and human development. It is a premier coworking and event space with dedicated and floating desks, community spaces, lounges, and meeting rooms. The Link provides shower and refresh facilities for event attendees.

The hackathon organizers will allocate a meeting room as a quiet space for attendees to rest and recover. The Link or the hackathon organizers will not provide sleeping provisions.

Participants are responsible for travel and accommodation costs.

Meet the Partners

The Performance Academy is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has served the Jacksonville community for over 14 years. TPA uses the healing power of the performing arts, including theater, dance, music, and poetry, to help teens and youth overcome struggles, build confidence, and develop critical life-readiness skills. By providing a supportive environment and real-world artistic training, they empower underserved youth to discover their passions and thrive.

Dreams Come True is the First Coast’s only locally based nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing hope and joy to children battling life-threatening medical conditions. Since 1984, they have fulfilled the dreams of more than 5,000 local children, providing brave families with a much-needed reprieve from hospital stays and medical treatments. By creating powerful, transformative experiences and lasting positive memories, they help restore a sense of childhood and strengthen family resilience during their most challenging times.

The Link is a space that inspires visitors of all ages to “learn, play, think, and do.” The state-of-the-art building in Ponte Vedra’s Nocatee neighborhood offers unique amenities and an overall otherworldly experience for guests attending - or hosting - an event.

The 22,500 sq ft building features open workspace and office space on level two and activity flex spaces on level one—giving you an innovative place to work while doing the activities you love. An innovation and activity hub about 30 minutes south of Jacksonville downtown and north of historic downtown St. Augustine, the Link offers something for all ages and has several event spaces available to rent. To learn more about the Link, visit https://www.thelink.zone/

Florida Data Science for Social Good (FL-DSSG) program brings together artificial intelligence (AI), data science, software engineering, and social science to tackle pressing social challenges across Florida. We achieve this goal by partnering with nonprofit and public-sector organizations in Florida, analyzing their data, and finding impactful solutions to social issues. The FL-DSSG program provides internships and research opportunities for students from diverse disciplines to work on data science projects along with our community partners. Nonprofit and public-sector organizations receive data analysis and visualization reports to support their work in Florida communities. Florida DSSG is hosted at the University of North Florida (UNF). For more information about the FL-DSSG, visit https://dssg.unf.edu/.

AI4Good Hackathon Schedule

Friday, October 23

Hackathon begins

4 PM - Kickoff event [First floor – near the stage]

4:30 PM – Introduction to problem cases and datasets overview

5 PM - Teams are formed, and data access info will be emailed to hackathon participants.

Friday 6 PM - Dinner [First floor – Dining area]

Friday 7 PM - Mentoring session on problem understanding [Second floor]

Saturday, October 24

Full day of coding and hacking, remainder of the day and through the night

9 AM – Breakfast [First floor]

11 AM - Mentoring session on selecting machine learning and AI techniques [Second floor]

12 PM – Lunch [First floor]

2 PM - Mentoring session on solution approach [Second floor]

6:30 PM – Dinner [First floor]

7 PM - Mentoring session on solution implementation [Second floor]

Sunday, October 25

Last hours of hacking and conducting performance evaluations until 10 AM.

9 AM – Breakfast [First floor]

10 AM - Submit solutions to Devpost. Presentation order selections.

11 AM - Experts review solutions submitted and share their perspectives with the judging team

12 PM – Lunch [First floor]

1 PM to 3:30 PM - Team presentations [First floor]

3:30 PM - Hackathon Winner Award ceremony and event closing [First floor]

Mentoring Sessions

Friday, October 23

5 PM to 6 PM

We will provide the list of mentors later.

Saturday, October 24

11 AM to 12 PM

We will provide the list of mentors later.

1 PM to 2 PM

We will provide the list of mentors later.

7 PM to 8 PM

We will provide the list of mentors later.

For more information about the AI4Good Hackathon event and organizer information, please visit the 2026 AI4Good Hackathon page.

• Evaluation Criteria
  Each participating team will be evaluated on their model performance and presentation of the results. The hackathon winners will be determined based on the evaluation factor weightings and scores received below.
• Presentation (20%)
  * Delivery of content (articulation, composure) * Appearance of content (clear and helpful visuals) * Organization of content * Q&A responses * Explanation of impact on stakeholders * Suggested next steps
• Model Performance (40%)
  * Communicate performance results * Interpretation of results * Technical terms explained * Model generation process * Model performance metrics
• Solution Approach (40%)
  * Originality/Creativity * Clearly defined positive impact on the environment * Feasibility to scale solution * Operational impact on problem case owners and affected population groups
• Scoring Ratings
  5 = Excellent presentation on all counts 4 = Very good presentation with minor issues 3 = Pitch can be significantly improved but is satisfactory overall 2 = Pitch is incomplete and severely lacking 1 = Presenter fails to address the criteria