About the challenge

Every year, millions of brilliant people try to move to, build in, or stay in the US — and get crushed by systems that feel designed for no one. Immigrant Hackathon NYC is a one-day, in-person sprint for the builders on the other side of that broken system. Founders, engineers, and international students coming together to ship software that actually helps.

Hosted by localhost:nyc (and partners), this is NYC's first immigrant-themed hackathon. It's not a brainstorm — it's a build. You walk in at 10 AM, you form a team, you ship a working prototype by 5 PM, and you demo it live in front of immigration attorneys, immigrant founders, and VCs backing immigrant-led startups.

We're looking for tools, agents, and products that reduce real friction — visa prep, legal navigation, cross-border ops, "first 1,000 days" onboarding. We are not looking for: slide decks, research papers, or projects you prepped before the event.

Get started

This hackathon has two tracks. Pick one and pick a sharp angle inside it.

Track 1 — Founder Immigration Tools for the people trying to build companies in the US while navigating visa and entity complexity.

An AI agent that builds an O-1/EB-1A evidence packet from your LinkedIn, press, and GitHub
Cross-border cap table + payroll tooling for founders with distributed teams
A "visa strategy copilot" that compares H-1B vs O-1 vs EB-1A vs EB-2 NIW based on your profile
Company formation flows optimized for non-US founders (Delaware C-corp + banking + EIN + stripe)

Track 2 — Learning to be American Tools for the first 1,000 days — everything nobody teaches you about actually living here.

A credit score builder for people with no SSN history
A healthcare navigator that explains deductibles, in-network, HSAs in plain English
Housing + tax prep flows for international students on F-1/OPT
A cultural copilot that decodes tipping, small talk, workplace norms, lease agreements

Requirements

What to Build

Build a working prototype during the event that addresses a real friction point in either the Founder Immigration track or the Learning to be American track. Requirements:

Must be built during the sprint (12:00 – 5:00 PM, May 9, 2026). No pre-built projects.
Must be a working prototype participants can demo live — not slides, not Figma mockups.
Must be demoed live by your team at 5:00 PM — no pre-recorded videos.
Can be web, mobile, agent, chrome extension, or CLI — any format that ships in 5 hours.
AI tools, LLM APIs, starter templates, and boilerplate are allowed. Originality is judged on the idea, craft, and execution — not whether you wrote every line from scratch.

What to Submit

Submit the following to your Devpost project page by 4:45 PM on May 9, 2026:

Project name and one-line description
What you built — a short write-up (100–300 words) explaining the problem, your approach, and how it works
Team member names and roles
Link to the live demo or prototype (deployed URL strongly preferred)
GitHub or code repo link
A 1-minute demo video (optional — live demo is what's judged)

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

3 non-cash prizes

Grand Prize

1 winner

Cash + sponsor stack credits

2nd Place

1 winner

Cash + sponsor stack credits

3rd Place

1 winner

Cash + sponsor stack credits

Judges

Somya Gupta

Judging Criteria

Design (out of 5)
Does the product look and feel great? Is the UX considered? Did the team make specific, intentional visual choices?
Uniqueness of Idea (out of 5)
Is this a sharp, non-obvious angle? Does it solve a real problem immigrants actually have, or is it a wrapper on a wrapper? Would an immigrant attorney or founder say "I wish this existed"?
Technical Execution (out of 5)
Does it actually work? How much was shipped in 5 hours? Are the hard parts (AI, integrations, data) done well?
Storytelling & Pitch (out of 5)
Can the team explain what they built in under 3 minutes? Is the live demo tight? Do they make you believe this should exist?

Soma Capital	Public
3 non-cash prizes	4 participants