The Data Portability Hackathon: Building Human-Centered AI

The AI Collective, AITX, the Data Transfer Initiative, and the UT School of Law are joining forces to host a first-of-its-kind hackathon bringing Austin's builders, researchers, policy thinkers, and creative technologists together under one roof. This event centers on a simple idea with major implications: what could AI do for people if it had access to their own memories — safely, transparently, and on their terms? Participants will work with high-quality synthetic "memory" datasets to prototype tools, assistants, policies, and systems that make personal data genuinely useful to the individual who owns it. Whether you're an engineer, designer, product thinker, or policy expert, this hackathon invites you to explore how user-controlled data can unlock a new class of human-centered AI. You'll form teams and choose from focused challenge tracks, access curated datasets, collaborate with mentors from the Austin ecosystem, and build alongside some of Austin's most ambitious AI talent. The event kicks off in Austin on February 25th at UT Austin, followed by two weeks of asynchronous building open to participants everywhere through March 9th. Sponsors and partners — including leaders in AI safety, interoperability, and data rights — will support teams through office hours, technical guidance, and judging. Challenge Tracks Track 1: Memory Infrastructure — Build the tools and systems that make user-controlled synthetic memory possible. Think secure data vaults, interoperability APIs, and consent-driven memory pipelines that put users in control of how their data moves and is stored. Track 2: AI Companions with Purpose — Create LLM-driven agents that use a user's synthetic memory to deliver real value, whether emotional, practical, or creative. Projects might include agents that summarize life experiences, plan based on past behavior, or generate deeply personalized output. Track 3: Personal Data, Personal Value — Build services that learn from a user's personal data — social media posts, emails, AI conversation histories — to create something genuinely valuable for them. The possibilities span economic, social, mental health, and beyond. Judges We're honored to have an exceptional panel reviewing final submissions: Chris Riley, Executive Director, Data Transfer Initiative Prakash Reddy, Head of Data Engineering, Atlassian Akshay Mittal, Staff Software Engineer, PayPal Aashita Jain, Senior Privacy Analyst, Informatica Puneet Thakkar, Enterprise Systems and Business Transformation, Google Prizes 1st Place: $5,000 2nd Place: $2,000 3rd Place: $1,000 If you're interested in the future of AI agents, digital autonomy, memory systems, or responsible innovation, this is the place to build, experiment, and push the conversation forward with a vibrant community. As always, food and drink, engaging conversation, and incredible company will all be provided! ​Please be advised: Unfortunately, space is very limited at these community events and we can not always accept everyone we would like to. If you are not accepted to this event, please keep applying! We appreciate your application tremendously and we are looking forward to seeing you at a future event very soon! The AI Collective is a global non-profit community uniting 100,000+ pioneers – founders, researchers, operators, and investors – exploring the frontier of AI in major tech hubs worldwide. Through events, workshops, and community-led research, we empower the AI ecosystem to collaboratively steer AI’s future toward trust, openness, and human flourishing. AITX is a community for AI Engineers, Entrepreneurs, and Explorers across Texas. Our mission is to make Texas a better place to build engineering-focused companies and hire engineering talent. We bring together the technical community across Texas through our monthly meetups, Hackathons, private dinners, and other events. Since launching in 2022, AITX has hosted demoes from 50+ local startups, big tech companies like NVIDIA, Google, Meta, and Cloudflare, and grown to over 5,500 members with chapters in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. The Data Transfer Initiative (DTI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering individuals by enabling simpler, faster, and more secure data transfers through data portability at scale. Born out of the Data Transfer Project (DTP), a collaborative open-source effort initiated in 2018 by a consortium of technology companies, DTI advances its mission through the design and implementation of open source data transfer tools and other innovations and investments to foster a healthy portability ecosystem. DTI also serves as an expert resource to regulators around the world, helping translate principle to practice and catalyzing greater user agency and empowerment. All attendees and organizers at events affiliated with The AI Collective agree to our privacy policy and are subject to our code of conduct.