The Hackathon Company, MAKERS, and START Lima have officially opened registration for IA Hackathon Peru — Road to START Hack 2026. Held on-site in Lima with hybrid participation, this national engineering competition bridges Andean developer talent with Europe’s largest student hackathon network.
The grand prize represents a career-defining catalyst: alongside a $1,500 cash bounty and the custom-crafted Alpaca Tech trophy, the winning team receives an official invitation to represent Peru at START Hack in St. Gallen, Switzerland (🇨🇭), with international flights, accommodation, and catering entirely financed by the organization.
About the event
- Format: On-site in Lima, Peru, supported by live-streamed technical sessions and mentoring workshops.
- Competition dates: November 29–30, 2026.
- Registration deadline: November 29, 2026.
- Community partners: Integrated with the Hack0 developer directory (
hack0.dev), UTEC Ventures, and national academic institutions. - Sponsor tooling & infrastructure: Realistic voice synthesis via ElevenLabs, AI-first IDE environments with Cursor, rapid scaffolding through Lovable and v0, identity management with Clerk, and university incubator backing from Cayetano and Bioincuba.
Prizes
- 1st Place Overall (Grand Champions):
- $1,500 pure cash prize awarded directly to the winning team.
- European Hackathon Expedition: Official invitation to compete at START Hack 🇨🇭 at the University of St. Gallen, covering airfare, lodging, and meals.
- Alpaca Tech Trophy: Commemorative tech trophy symbolizing Peruvian innovation.
- Incubator Fast-Tracking: Direct advisory and review sessions with venture accelerators and seed funds (UTEC Ventures and Bioincuba).
- Tooling Credits & Pro Tiers: Free developer subscriptions and API quotas from ElevenLabs, Cursor, Lovable, and Cloud Forge AI.
Key technical focus areas
Engineers, data scientists, and builders are encouraged to build end-to-end working systems targeting complex local and global frontiers:
- Healthcare & Bio-Informatics: Clinical triage agents and preliminary diagnostic assistance tools powered by Bioincuba and Cayetano research assets.
- Financial Inclusion: Micro-merchant financial agents providing natural language bookkeeping, dynamic payment links, and multimodal fraud prevention.
- Multimodal Accessibility: Voice-driven interfaces leveraging natural acoustic synthesis (ElevenLabs) to bring complex AI tooling to low-bandwidth environments.
Judging panel
The evaluation committee unites prominent tech leaders, CTOs, and startup operators:
- Adrian Mastronardi (CTO at Habi)
- Martin Pelaez (CTO & Cofounder at Finity)
- Piero Sifuentes (Cofounder & CTO at Hapi)
- Sebastian Ruiz (Program Lead at UTEC Ventures)
- Gonzalo Aller (Business Incubator Manager)
Submissions are scored on algorithmic complexity, execution stability under live demonstration, and the team’s readiness to compete on the international European stage.
References
- IA Hackathon Peru Official Site — Registration form, event timetable, and competition rules. Date: 2026-10-15. Type: Official competition portal.
- START Hack Switzerland — Europe’s premier student-led hackathon in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Date: 2026-10-15. Type: International partner event.
- Hack0 Developer Ecosystem — National technology hackathons and engineering hub for Peru. Date: 2026-10-15. Type: Developer community.
