1. Registration
Registration for this event will be online at www.gsa.gov/technology/government-it-initiatives/federal-ai-hackathon (“event website”), and remain open until Monday, July 29, 2024, 9 a.m. EDT. Each location has limited space and only one registration is allowed per person. Participants will receive a confirmation email after completing the online registration. Once registration is full for a particular site, GSA will place you on a wait list. Those placed on the waitlist will be contacted when a space becomes available based on when they registered. On-site registration will not be allowed.
Teams may be formed in three ways. First, individuals may choose to register a team with as few as one, and no more than five, individuals. Second, registrants have the option (upon request) to be randomly assigned to a team with up to five individuals. Third, a team registered with less than five individuals may request additional people be randomly assigned to their team, up to a total of five persons, by contacting the event organizers. Requests to be randomly assigned to a team and/or for additional team members is not guaranteed. The exact number of participants available for random assignment will depend on the number who show up in person on the day of the event at a particular location. GSA will try to randomly assign teammates in the same location; however, your randomly assigned team may be located at another event location. If you are randomly assigned teammates in another location, GSA will provide video conferencing software for you to collaborate during the hackathon. GSA will not provide video-cameras, headphones, or microphones.
As a condition of participation, participants who require a reasonable accommodation may request one at hackathon@gsa.gov, or via the registration form page when registering, up until the registration deadline.
2. Attendance
All participants are required to check in with security upon arriving at the applicable GSA location. A U.S. government-issued ID, such as a valid driver’s license or passport, is required to gain access to our buildings. Following the security check-in, participants must check in at the event registration table. Visitors will be issued a one-day GSA visitor badge, which must be worn at all times and returned when departing the building. Participants may be issued an event name tag with additional participation information. All visitors must pass through a magnetometer, and their possessions may be x-rayed. A GSA employee must escort visitors through the hallways at all times, except when in their assigned hackathon space.
Participants should plan to arrive in a reasonable amount of time to go through all security protocols, gain entry into the building, and register with organizers. The full event schedule is available on the event website.
In order to be eligible to win any prize, participants must be on-site (exclusive of lunch) at one of the three event locations from 9 a.m. until the conclusion of the event, estimated to be no later than 6:30 p.m. Participants should be mindful that the event will begin promptly at 9 a.m. Late admission, and eligibility to win prizes, will be at the sole discretion of the event organizers and is not guaranteed. The decision to admit people after 9 a.m. will be based on whether the admission would contribute to a successful and equitable event.
As a condition of participation in the hackathon, all participants must sign a form agreeing to a photo release and the performance of gratuitous (unpaid) services without compensation for these services. This form will be provided in advance via an emailed Docusign link and the event website. Participants may print the form and bring a signed copy to the event, may sign it in person on the day of the event, or submit it digitally via Docusign (preferred method).
The Federal AI Hackathon will take place simultaneously in the following cities:
Atlanta, GA
Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building
77 Forsyth St SW, Atlanta, GA 30303
Special instructions: Participants will follow all security procedures stated and be escorted by a hackathon representative to Conference Room 1. Participants may arrive no earlier than 8 a.m.
New York City, NY
One World Trade Center [PDF]
285 Fulton St, New York, NY 10007
Special instructions: Participants will follow all security procedures stated and be escorted by a hackathon representative to Room 55S08. Participants may arrive no earlier than 8 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
U.S. General Services Administration Headquarters
1800 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20405
Special instructions: Main entrance located on F Street NW. Entrance on E Street is not permitted. Turn left past security and proceed to the registration table, and then to the auditorium. Participants will follow all security procedures stated onsite. Participants may arrive no earlier than 8 a.m.
3. The challenge
All teams will be randomly assigned to work on one specific federal website to “hack” on the day of the event. Using the tools provided, participants will address the challenge:
Federal websites serve users, but what about artificial intelligence as a user? As large language models are trained to interpret websites, people will increasingly depend on these tools to navigate government services. How should the federal government optimize its websites to ensure LLMs generate reliable, authoritative answers while continuing to meet individual user needs and expectations? This Federal AI Hackathon challenges you to reimagine specific federal websites in a way that optimizes them for “AI as a user,” while maintaining (and/or enhancing) the human user experience.
The event co-sponsors will provide participants free access to some of the most widely used AI and cloud tools to use on the day of the event. The specific tools will be identified on the event website before the day of the hackathon. Using those tools, participants will leverage LLMs and other technologies to write code, propose development standards, and/or develop other novel approaches to address the problem statement.
Additional event and challenge parameters (such as the specific websites) will be revealed on or closer to the date of the event.
4. Prizes
Through this competition, GSA anticipates awarding four cash prizes, for a $10,000 total prize purse. The first prizes will be as follows:
- First place: $5,000
- Second place: $3,000
- Third place: $1,500
- People’s Choice: $500
The dollar amount for any given prize will not vary by team size. Instead, the prize amount will be divided equally among eligible team members. If one member of a team is deemed ineligible, the prize money will be equally divided among eligible team members. If an entire team is deemed ineligible, the fourth-highest-point scorer will be awarded the third place prize, and the other winners will be elevated to the corresponding prize level.
Funding for this hackathon will come from GSA. Prizes will be distributed to the eligible winners via electronic funds transfer, within 60 business days of the final announcement of the winner(s). Participants must complete and submit all requested winner verification and payment documents to GSA within three business days of it being requested. Failure to return all required verification documents by the date specified in the notification may be a basis for disqualification of the winning entry. Winners are responsible for all taxes or other fees connected with the prize received.
5. Judging
At 3 p.m. EDT, the competition will end. Participants must submit their solutions according to our submission guidance. We will not allow changes to submissions after this time.
- Each team will have up to five minutes to present their solutions to the Round 1 judging panel with an additional minute for questions. GSA may change this presentation time based on the total number of teams registered. We will announce any changes on the day of the event.
- After Round 1 judging is complete, the top 20 teams (equally sourced from each judging panel) will make a one-minute presentation to all participants in attendance. Each participant may then cast a vote to select the “People’s Choice” winner based on these presentations. Participants may not vote for themselves.
- The People’s Choice winner and the highest scorer from each Round 1 judging panel will advance to Round 2. These winners will present their solutions to the Round 2 judging panel and all event participants. The top three scoring teams will be awarded the first, second, and third places prizes, respectively.
- GSA reserves the right to change the number of teams presenting in Round 2 due to disqualification, withdrawals, or other reasons to ensure a more successful and/or equitable outcome.
Judging may occur both virtually through video conferencing software and in-person at 1800 F St NW, Washington, DC 20405. GSA will provide video conferencing software (Google Meet). Participants are responsible for providing their own functioning webcams and microphones.
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each judge independently scoring each category based on the total number of available points. The highest possible score will be 130 points:
- Relevance and impact
- Alignment with business objectives (10 points)
- Potential impact (10 points)
- Innovation and creativity
- Originality (10 points)
- Creativity (10 points)
- Technical implementation
- Technical difficulty (10 points)
- Execution (10 points)
- AI optimization
- AI integration (20 points)
- AI performance (20 points)
- Feasibility
- Practicality (10 points)
- Scalability (10 points)
- Presentation and documentation
- Clarity of presentation (5 points)
- Documentation (5 points)
6. Eligibility
To be eligible to win a cash prize, participants must:
- Register via the designated event website.
- Attend the event in person for the duration of the event, as described in the “attendance” section of this rules document.
- Comply with all requirements under 15 U.S.C. 3719 and competition rules.
- Be age 18 or older and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident of the United States or its territories at the time of registration.
- Not be an employee of the federal government or be a federal entity.
- Not have a familial or financial relationship with any event judge. If the participant becomes aware of such a relationship, the participant must inform event organizers immediately so that an attempt to find an alternate judging panel can be made. GSA does not guarantee an alternate judging arrangement.
- Comply with all rules and terms and any rulings by the judges, the event chair, or the event co-chair.
Additionally, to participate at all, participants must:
- Not be suspended, debarred, or otherwise excluded from doing business with the federal government. This includes an individual or entity that is determined to be on the GSA excluded parties list on SAM.gov.
- Not use federal funds as a federal grantee to develop competition solutions unless consistent with the purpose of their grant award.
- Not use federal funds as a federal contractor as part of a contract to develop competition submissions, or fund efforts in support of a competition submission.
- If entering on behalf of a company, institution, or other legal entity, ensure their entry does not violate any policies of that company, institution or legal entity.
- Not be employed by an event co-sponsor (AWS, Cohere, Google, Groq, Microsoft, OpenAI, or Slack). We will deem all members of a team possessing a single member violating this provision ineligible to win a cash prize.
- Complete and sign the participant waiver.
While federal employees are eligible to participate, they may not win a cash prize. If a federal employee competes as part of a team with cash prize-eligible teammates, those teams will not be assigned to a website from the agency employing any federal team member.
Participation and eligibility to win a cash prize is subject to all U.S. federal, state or local laws and regulations.
7. Intellectual property and use
By participating in the hackathon, each participant warrants that he or she is the sole author or owner of, or has the right to use, any intellectual property that the solution comprises, that the works are wholly original with the participant (or is an improved version of an existing work that the participant has sufficient rights to use and improve), and that the solution does not violate or infringe any copyright or any other rights of any third party of which participant is aware, as protected under applicable intellectual property law.
Participants will not be required to transfer their intellectual property rights to GSA, but must grant to the federal government a nonexclusive license to practice their solutions and use the materials that describe them. By submitting an entry, this license grants to the federal government a nonexclusive, non-transferable, irrevocable, paid-up, royalty-free license to practice or have practiced for or on behalf of the United States throughout the world any protected work made by the participants that covers the submission. In addition, the license grants to the federal government and others acting on its behalf, a fully paid, nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license in any intellectual property that the submission comprises, including, but not limited to: the right to use, reproduce, or prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and publicly perform and display said intellectual property. To participate in the challenge, each participant must warrant that there are no legal obstacles to providing the above-referenced nonexclusive licenses of participants rights to the federal government.
GSA is under a strict duty not to give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. As such, participants must agree to take diligent care to avoid the appearance of government endorsement of competition participation and participant submissions. By participating in the hackathon, participants agree not to refer to GSA’s use of their solution in any commercial advertising or similar promotions in a manner that could imply that the GSA or the federal government endorses, prefers, sponsors, or has an affiliation with participant or participants’ products or services. Participants agree that GSA’s trademarks, logos, service marks, trade names, or the fact that GSA awarded a prize to a participant, shall not be used by the participant to imply direct GSA endorsement of participant or participant’s submission. Both participants and GSA may list the other party’s name in a publicly available customer or other list so long as the name is not displayed in a more prominent fashion than any other third-party name.
8. Use of software tools, websites, and support
Participants will not be permitted to receive assistance, or help, from any individual or entity outside of the registered participant list at the time of the event, except from the support materials and/or personnel provided by GSA and its co-sponsors. Registered participants can help other registered participants through advice and collaboration.
In order to facilitate better submissions, GSA’s private sector co-sponsors are providing access to a number of software tools at no cost to participants during the event. GSA and its co-sponsors will endeavor to provide equitable access to all participating teams. Participants may only leverage these tools for the purposes of addressing the challenge in this event. Participants are expressly prohibited from using these tools for personal, commercial, or other purposes outside of this challenge. Further, GSA and its co-sponsors make no warranties or representations with respect to the availability or performance of these tools during the event. Any failures or malfunctions of those tools is deemed to be part of the challenge, and creates no obligation for GSA or the event co-sponsors to remedy such issues. GSA similarly makes no guarantees about the performance of the federal websites being used in the event.
The event’s private sector co-sponsors (AWS, Cohere, Google, Groq, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Slack) may provide expert assistance regarding the use of the software tools via dedicated Slack channels. These co-sponsors will not provide advice or guidance on participants’ submissions. GSA will endeavor to provide answers to participants’ questions to all participants via the use of Slack channels. Questions posed to these experts have no expectation of confidentiality.
The event’s federal co-sponsors (GSA, Department of Commerce Census Bureau, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and the United States Department of Agriculture) may provide expert advice regarding the specific websites being used for the event. GSA will endeavor to provide answers to participants’ questions to all participants assigned to the same website via the use of Slack channels. Questions posed to these experts have no expectation of confidentiality.
Participants may not use software or hardware obtained from any of the event co-sponsors that has not been made available to all participants. This provision does not apply to freely available software from the co-sponsors.
9. Indemnity
As a condition of participation, all participants must agree to indemnify the federal government against third-party claims for damages arising from or related to competition activities. Participants are not required to obtain liability insurance or demonstrate financial responsibility in order to participate in the competition. By entering the contest, participants agree to hold GSA and any other agency or body of the federal government harmless from all legal and administrative claims to include associated expenses that may arise from any claims related to their participation, their entry, or use of their entry.
10. Additional terms and conditions
Any violation of these rules will be grounds for disqualification from the competition, in GSA’s sole discretion. GSA reserves the right for any reason, including but not limited to an insufficient number of qualified entries, to modify or cancel the competition at any time before or during the event. GSA reserves the right to modify these rules by publishing updates on the event website and by notifying contestants of the change.
By participating in the event, each participant agrees to comply with and abide by all event rules, terms, and conditions, and the decisions of GSA and/or the individual judges. All judging panel decisions are final and binding in all respects and may not be appealed. Determinations regarding the event rules by the event chair and/or co-chair are final and binding in all respects, and may not be appealed.
Reference to any non-federal entity, including co-sponsors, anywhere in this document or anywhere else in association with this event does not constitute or imply GSA endorsement, recommendation, or favoring.
U.S. General Services Administration