Build With AI
NYC Hackathon

Tackling Industry Challenges.

NYC Hackathon

What to Build

Develop an interactive tool or agent that leverages NYC datasets and Gen AI to address civic issues, increase transparency, and surface inequities.

🎙️

Live Agents

Real-time Interaction (Audio/Vision)

Build an agent that users can talk to naturally can be interrupted. This could be a real-time translator, a vision-enabled customized tutor that "sees" your homework, or a customer support voice agent that handles interruptions gracefully.

🎨

Creative Storyteller

Multimodal Storytelling with Interleaved Output

Build an agent that thinks and creates like a creative director, seamlessly weaving together text, images, audio, and video in a single, fluid output stream. Leverage Gemini's native interleaved output to generate rich, mixed-media responses that combine narration with visuals, explanations with generated imagery, or storyboards with voiceover, all in one cohesive flow. Examples include Interactive storybooks (text + generated illustrations inline), marketing asset generator (copy + visuals + video in one go), educational explainers (narration woven with diagrams), and social content creator (caption + image + hashtags together).

Mandatory Tech: Must use Gemini's interleaved/mixed output capabilities.

Mandatory Tech: Projects must be hosted on Google Cloud, and use Google GenAI SDK/Agent Development Kit.

Bonus Points: Industry Use Cases

Bonus points are awarded to projects that demonstrate practical industry applications. Here are some possible use cases:

Sports

Example: Real-time game analytics agent, personalized fan engagement platform, athlete performance tracker using multimodal inputs.

📈

Finance

Example: AI financial advisor, automated document parsing for loan approvals, fraud detection assistants, market trend analysis.

🛍️

Retail

Example: Voice-powered personal shoppers, smart inventory management agents, dynamic personalized marketing asset generators.

🏥

Healthcare

Example: Medical transcription assistants, patient symptom triage agents, multimodal diet, workout, and health planners.

⚙️

Engineering

Example: Code review and debugging agents, architectural diagram generation from text, interactive technical documentation tutors.

Judging Criteria

Innovation & Multimodal User Experience (40%)

  • The "Beyond Text" Factor: Does the project break the "text box" paradigm? Is the interaction natural, immersive, and superior to a standard chat interface? Does the agent "See, Hear, and Speak" in a way that feels seamless?
  • Fluidity: Is the experience "Live" and context-aware, or does it feel disjointed and turn-based?

Technical Implementation & Agent Architecture (30%)

  • Google Cloud Native: Does the code effectively utilize the Google GenAI SDK or ADK?
  • System Design: Is the agent logic sound? Does it handle errors, API timeouts, or edge cases gracefully?
  • Robustness: Does the agent avoid hallucinations? Is there evidence of grounding?

Demo & Presentation (30%)

  • The Story: Does the video clearly define the problem and the solution?
  • The Proof: Is the architecture diagram clear? Is there visual proof of Cloud deployment in the video or submission materials?
  • The "Working" Factor: Does the video show the actual software working (not just mockups)?

The Judging Flow

1
Round 1: Group Heats

Participants are split into 2-3 equal groups. Each team has 5-8 minutes to explain and demo their work to a subset of judges.

2
The Selection

Judges select the top 6 teams (2-3 from each group) to move forward to the grand finale.

3
Round 2: Main Stage

Finalists present to the entire room and all judges for the final call and winner announcement.

Strictly Prohibited

  • AI Mental Health/Medical Advisors
  • Basic RAG apps ("Chat with my PDF")
  • Standard Education Chatbots

Setup Instructions

Step 1: Claim Credits
Step 2: Environment

Provision Workshop Resources

Use a personal Gmail account and Incognito mode.
  1. Open a new Incognito window.
  2. Paste and visit your event link: goo.gle/TBD
  3. Accept the Google Cloud Platform Terms of Service.

Submit Your Work

Submit your team details and repository link. You can submit multiple times; we'll count the latest one.

Requirement: Your repository's README.md must list all team members and contributors.