Adria Hack Sarajevo '26 - The Overnight
Date: 2026-09-12 — 2026-09-13
Location: Sarajevo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, BA
Type: hackathon
Level: open
Organizer: Eman Cickusic
Tags: ai, data-science, devops-cloud, developer-tools, api-platform
Adria Hack Sarajevo '26 — The Overnight 50 builders. 24 hours. One night. Sarajevo, 12–13 September 2026. ────────────────────────────────────────── WHAT IT IS Adria Hack is a curated 24-hour startup hackathon. Around 50 selected builders from across Europe and the wider EMEA region build continuously — overnight, on-site, in one room — and demo what they made the next day. No streaming in from home. No week-long submission window. You walk in with an idea and walk out with something that runs. The region has never been short of talent. What it lacked was the room: a place where the most ambitious builders are put together, given serious tools, and pushed to ship something real in one sitting. That is what this is. Adria Hack is the first event of Adria Tech Arena, a regional platform launching from Sarajevo and expanding city by city. We are early, and we say so — which is exactly why it is worth being in the first one. ────────────────────────────────────────── THE FORMAT When Saturday 12 – Sunday 13 September 2026 Where Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (exact venue announced soon) Length 24 hours, continuous and overnight Who ~50 selected builders — engineers, designers, students, early founders Teams 2–4 people. Apply solo and form a team on the day. Cost Free, including food and drinks for the full 24 hours After Demo Night — every team pitches to the jury, partners and investors The clock starts Saturday at 12:00 and stops Sunday at 12:00. You stay on-site for all of it. ────────────────────────────────────────── THREE TRACKS Pick one. Each is backed by partner technology and mentors. AI INFRASTRUCTURE The tooling, pipelines and systems that make AI usable in production. Not another chatbot — the layer underneath. HEALTHTECH Patient access, care delivery, diagnostics and health data. Real problems, brought by partners who work in them. FINTECH Payments, digital banking, financial access and literacy. Build for the money rails people actually use. ────────────────────────────────────────── WHAT YOU GET $60,000 in credits and partner technology across the room — roughly $1,200 per builder — from Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, MongoDB and Biscuit, provisioned the moment your team is confirmed. Mentors from Bloomteq and Ministry of Programming, in the room with you rather than on a Slack channel, across two structured rounds: Round 1, day one — 30 to 60 minutes per team. Define the MVP, cut the scope, set priorities. Most teams lose because in the first two hours they choose a plan that cannot be finished in 24 hours. A senior engineer sees that in five minutes. Round 2, day two — 30 to 60 minutes per team. Land it: what to cut, what to fake, and how to tell the story on stage. A demo stage in front of partners, investors and press. Food, drinks and coffee for the full 24 hours. And everything you build stays 100% yours — we claim no ownership of your code or your idea. ────────────────────────────────────────── PRIZES The cash prize pool is being finalised with our partners and will be announced before applications close. We do not put numbers on a page before they are real. Beyond the cash, we are putting together access for the top teams that does not normally open up at this stage: seats at conferences, entry into competitions where startups actually get funded, and introductions to the kind of people who write cheques. Some of it is confirmed, some is still being signed. We will name it when it is done. ────────────────────────────────────────── HOW YOU ARE JUDGED Working product 30% Does it actually run? Can you show it live? Problem and impact 25% Is this a real problem, and does your solution move it? Technical execution 25% Is it well built for 24 hours of work? Pitch and clarity 20% Can you explain what it is, who it is for, and why? The jury is made up of senior engineers, founders and investors from our partners. ────────────────────────────────────────── KEY DATES 16 August 2026 Applications close, 23:59 CET 18 August 2026 Decisions sent — everyone hears back, accepted or not You then have 24 hours to confirm your place 25 August 2026 Final details sent: venue address, schedule, what to bring 12 September Doors 10:00 · opening 11:00 · the clock starts 12:00 13 September Submissions close 12:00 · Demo Night 13:00 · winners 16:00 Decisions land more than three weeks before the event, on purpose, so anyone travelling has time to book at a sensible price. ────────────────────────────────────────── WHO SHOULD APPLY Engineers, designers, data people, students and early founders from anywhere in Europe and the wider EMEA region. You do not need to be a student, and you do not need a company. Applications are reviewed, not first-come. We select on what you have built and how you think — not on your CV or your university. Show us something: a repo, a project, a side thing that got out of hand. The room is capped at around 50 people. A smaller room means better mentor time per team, real food, and a demo everyone actually watches. Travel and accommodation are your own. The event itself is free — and since you build through the night on-site, most people do not need a hotel for the Saturday. If you are selected and need a confirmation letter for a visa application, ask us and we will send one. ────────────────────────────────────────── RULES IN SHORT All code is written during the 24-hour window. Planning, research and choosing your stack beforehand are fine and encouraged. AI tools, open-source libraries and partner credits are allowed and encouraged — use everything you can get. Submit a working demo, the source code and a short write-up before the clock stops. Attend in person for the full 24 hours. Treat everyone in the room with respect. ────────────────────────────────────────── BACKED BY Microsoft Azure · MongoDB · Google Cloud · GDG Sarajevo · Biscuit · Bloomteq · Ministry of Programming. Hosted on BuilderBase. ────────────────────────────────────────── Applications close 16 August. Decisions 18 August. 50 seats.