VibeHack 2025 - Vibecoding Hackathon with EF X Emergent

This isn’t your regular hackathon :) Over one weekend, 150 hand-picked builders/professionals will come together to bring their boldest ideas to life and turn them into real products! Many of them have never written a line of code - and that’s the point. Join us for a two-day vibe-coding sprint with our friends at Emergent and OpenAI :) We'll also have credits and support from Sarvam AI and Agnost AI. You might be a product manager, vibe coder, developer, a marketer, a designer, or someone who’s spent years building a career in business, sales, or finance. Now you’re ready to chase an idea that’s been sitting in your head for years. We’ll kick things off Saturday morning with lightning talks from Emergent, EF and OpenAI, and get straight into building. We'll have food, coffee, drinks and most of the day/night reserved for hacking. On Sunday, we'll build in the morning, have an awesome fireside talk at lunch and the top 10 teams will do demos to our amazing panel of judges (stay tuned!) in the evening. For 48 hours, you’ll: Work in teams or go solo to build a working product from scratch. Get guidance from mentors at Entrepreneurs First and Emergent. Push yourself to think bigger, move faster, and ship something real. Present to a jury that will choose the Top 3 teams. And for the winners? A career-defining prize: Entry to the final round for the upcoming EF batch in 2026! Prizes: 1st place winners get a fast-tracked invitation to EF’s final round of selection in Bangalore (Spring 2026 Selection Hackathon) - a rare chance to skip ahead in EF’s highly selective founder selection process, to join our Spring cohort. Cash Prizes for the top 3 teams. OpenAI: A prize pool of $25,000 in credits for winning teams. $12,500 - 1st place $7,500 - 2nd place $5,000 - 3rd place A 1-year subscription to ChatGPT Pro for the top 3 teams. Come for the code. Stay for the chaos. Build what shouldn’t exist yet. Agenda: Saturday (13th Dec): 8:00am-9:00am- Registrations & Check-in 9:00am-10:00am - Network & connect over Breakfast 10am-10:30am - VibeHack Kickoff 10:30am- 10:40am- Welcome Note by EF 10:40am-10:50am- Welcome Note by OpenAI 10:50am- 11:30am- Fireside Chat 11:30am-1:00pm - Build Block #1 1:00pm-2:00pm - Lunch 2:00pm-4:30pm - Build Block #2 4:30pm-5:00pm - Snack + Coffee Break 5:00pm-8:00pm - Build Block #3 8pm - 8:30pm - Dinner + Agnost AI demo 8:30pm - 11pm - Build Block #4 Sunday (14th Dec): 9:00am - 9:30am - Breakfast 9:30am - 12:00pm - Final Build Block: Fine-tune & perfect your product before pitching to the pod leads 12:00pm - 1:00pm - Lunch + Founder Talk 1:00pm-3:00pm - Demo to pod leads (2 mins + 1 min Q&A per team) 3:00pm-4:00pm - Snacks/Coffee & EF/Emergent team selects top 10 teams 4:00pm-4:30pm - Top 10 teams are announced! 4:30pm-6:00pm - Top 10 teams prep for final demos 6:00pm-7:00pm - Demo w/ Judges – 3 min presentation + 2 min Q&A 7:15pm-7:30pm - Judges select the top 3 winners 7:30pm-8:00pm - Prizes and pictures! FAQs Do I need to know coding to participate? No. VibeHack doesn't mandate any coding knowledge. What kind of people are you looking for? Professionals from roles like product, engineering, management, marketing, design, finance, operations, sales - AND students! People with ambition and ideas who are ready to build, even if they’ve never written code. Can I apply as a team? if you are applying as a team, only 1 member needs to apply and it automatically selects the other members as along as it is less than or equal to 4 total members. Make sure to note that you’re part of a team in the open response section - Add their FULL NAME, EMAIL and LINKEDIN for our reference. Solo applicants are also encouraged to apply — there will be opportunities to meet others and form teams at the kickoff. How many people will be selected? 150 participants. Selection is based on applications, not first-come-first-serve. What does the application process look like? You’ll apply via Luma with a short form that asks about your background, why you want to join, and what you’d like to build. If you’re approved, you’ll get a confirmation email with all details. Is participation free? Yes, there is no fee. The event is free but selective. We do not cover personal costs associated for traveling to the hackathon. What’s the structure of the hackathon? Day 1: Kickoff, team formation, and building. Day 2: More building, local demo rounds to shortlist, and Top 10 stage demos. From those, the Top 3 teams are chosen. What are the judging criteria? Ideas will be evaluated on originality, value to users, execution quality, feasibility, market potential, and storytelling. What do winners get? EF Final Round selection + Cash Prizes + Emergent & OpenAI credits​. Will the event be streamed? No. If accepted, you must participate in person. Do I need to stay overnight? It is optional. You can keep building late into the night if you want to, or rest and continue the next morning. There's a strict no re-entry from midnight until 7 AM the next day. What support will I get while building? Mentors from EF and Emergent will be on-site to help teams troubleshoot, refine their ideas, and make progress. What do I need to bring? Your laptop, charger, and anything you need to stay productive for 48 hours. Food and refreshments will be provided. Where is the event happening? At the Polaris School of Technology, DivyaSree Technopark, A3, EPIP Zone, Brookefield, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560066. Are you a minor (Under 18 years old)? No children under the age of 15 are allowed to attend these events. Attendees aged 15-17 require a parent waiver to be signed prior to the event. When will winners get their prizes? EF will reach out to the winners to coordinate a date and time to meet in the future. Entrepreneurs First invests in exceptional individuals to build startups from scratch. We bring together people with extraordinary futures to develop their most ambitious ideas and raise money from the world’s best investors. Startups co-founded in our programmes are now worth over $13B.