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Build Small Hackathon — small models, big adventure
Hosted by  Gradio · Hugging Face Anchor Sponsors  OpenBMB · OpenAI · NVIDIA · Modal Cash & Prizes  $40k+
Anchor Sponsors
★ Anchor Sponsor ★
OpenAI Logo

$10,000 in cash prizes, plus $100 in Codex credits for the first 1,000 participants.

★ Anchor Sponsor ★
NVIDIA Logo

Two RTX 5080 GPUs🔥 as physical prizes.

★ Anchor Sponsor ★
Modal Logo

$250 in Modal credits for every participant, plus $20,000 in credits for the winners.

★ Anchor Sponsor ★
OpenBMB Logo

$10,000 in special category prizes — split across both tracks for the standout OpenBMB picks.

Supporting Sponsors
Cohere Logo
Cohere
$5,000 in cash prize contribution to the pool.
Black Forest Labs Logo
Black Forest Labs
$3,000 in cash prize contribution to the pool.
More
soon ✦
More partners on the trail
We're still chatting with friends across the AI world — new names will land here as things get finalized. Stay tuned.
Registrations are now closed. The trail opens June 5.
Sign-ups wrapped on June 3, 2026. Registered builders — you're in! Hop into the Discord, find your teammates, and start sketching. The hack window runs June 5–15.
→   Join the Discord   ←
❋ Chapter Zero — Why this exists

The pace of AI over the last year has been anxiety-inducing. Labs release larger and larger models that do more of the things that make us feel human — writing, drawing, speaking, coding. No wonder more than half of us think the risks of AI outweigh the benefits.

We're sponsoring a hackathon to take things back to how they felt in 2021 — when models were small enough to tinker with, and the vibe was fun and hopeful about how this technology could improve our lives.

This hackathon is different. Rather than using a giant LLM to ship yet another B2B SaaS, we want you to think small. Armed with only 32 billion parameters, solve a problem someone you know is facing — or build something whimsical.

❋ Two Tracks · Pick your trail

Choose your own adventure.

Chapter One
🏡

Backyard AI

Solve a real problem for someone you actually know. Pick a person — a neighbor, a parent, a small-business owner on your street — and build something that makes their day measurably better.

Judged on
  • Problem is specific and real
  • The person actually used it
  • Honest fit between problem and the small-model constraint
  • Polish of the Gradio app
Chapter Two
🍄

An Adventure in Thousand Token Wood

Build something delightful that wouldn't exist without AI. Wander somewhere weirder. A toy, a tiny game, a strange interactive story, an art experiment that surprises you. The AI should be doing the fun thing — not just helping you build it. Strange is good. Joyful is the bar.

Judged on
  • Genuinely delightful (would you show a friend?)
  • AI is load-bearing for the experience
  • Originality of concept
  • Polish of the Gradio app
❋ The Constraints — Three rules of the trail

Pack light.

1

Small Models Only

Total parameters must be ≤ 32 billion. The model fits on a laptop. So should your ambition.

2

Built on Gradio

Your app must be a Gradio app, hosted as a Hugging Face Space. That's the canvas.

3

Show, Don't Tell

A short demo video and a social-media post are part of the submission. Make it sing.

❋ Bonus Quests · Six earnable merit badges

Stack 'em on your sash.

None required. Each one grants extra points for your submission. Hover a patch to see it lift.

🔌
Off the Grid
No cloud APIs. The whole thing runs on the model in front of you.
Local-first
🎯
Well-Tuned
Your app uses a fine-tuned model you've published on Hugging Face.
Fine-tuned
🎨
Off-Brand
A custom frontend that pushes past the default Gradio look.
Custom UI
🦙
Llama Champion
Your model runs through the llama.cpp runtime.
llama.cpp
📡
Sharing is Caring
You shared your agent trace on the Hub for everyone to learn from.
Open trace
📓
Field Notes
You wrote a blog post or report about what you built and what you learned.
Tentative
❋ How to Participate

Four steps. No application. No waitlist.

I
Register Closed
Registrations closed June 3, 2026. If you registered and joined this org, you're all set for the trail.
II
Find your people
Hop into the Gradio Discord. AMAs. Connect with Gradio and HF folks. Potential teammates live there.
III
Build & ship
Build your Gradio app and host it as a Space under this org.
IV
Submit
Drop your Space link, a short demo video, and a social post by the deadline.
❋ How to Get Started · Tools for the trail

Useful trailheads.

📓  ML Intern→ 📚  Gradio Guides→ 🛠  Gradio's gr.Server — fully custom UIs→ 🦙  Getting Started with Llama.cpp→
❋ Timeline · A hand-drawn map

Two weekends in the woods.

Trail map
✓
May 07 – June 3, 2026
Registration window.Now closed. Sign-ups wrapped June 3.
II
June 5, 2026
Hack window begins.Two weekends to build, ship, and demo.
III
Mid-window
Live AMA.Ask the sponsors and Gradio team anything.
IV
June 15, 2026
Submissions close.Space, demo video, social post locked in.
V
[date TBD]
Winners announced.Per track, plus bonus-quest leaderboard.

Build something small.

Two weekends. Two tracks. The model on your laptop. The neighbor next door.

→   Join the Discord   ←

Registrations closed June 3 — see you on the trail, June 5!

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