AnimalHack 2026

Expected Project Topics

Expected project topics include, but are not limited to: 

• Contributing to animal wellbeing 
• Assisting animal owners 
• Assisting animal adoptions 
• Monitoring, conserving and improving the environment around animals 
• Observing, tracing and protecting wild animals 
• Breeding, rearing/farming and harvesting animals 
• Managing nuisance issues with wildlife
• Addressing animal abuse, cruelty and illegal capture/trade

Solutions can take many different forms such as apps, games, social platforms, web sites/services, devices, robots, data collection/storage, data analysis/forecasts, data visualization, information retrieval, and 3-dimensional modeling/printing. 

Requirements

Project Work: AnimalHack is a “flexible” online hackathon. You can work on your project anytime until 12pm on September X (Sat), EST.

Project Submission: You are required to complete ALL of the following 3 requirements:

• Submit your project to Devpost by 12pm on September X (Sat), EST.
• Register your project presentation on a Google Forms page by 12pm on September X (Sat), EST.
• Give a project presentation online at September X (Sun), EST.

The deadlines are firm. No extensions will be given. Failure to meet the above requirements will disqualify you (and your team) in award judging.

A link for presentation registration will be shared in the AnimalHack 2026 channel of Discord. To register your presentation, you will be asked to submit:

• Name and contact info
• Country of residence (time zone)
• Project title
• Project summary (short one-paragraph description)
• Publicly accessible link to your project placed on an online code repository (e.g. GitHub) or online storage (e.g. Google Drive). We will use this link to verify the actual outcome of your work and confirm its relevance to AnimalHack. Please note that we will not schedule your presentation if we cannot verify your actual work. You may submit a link to your Devpost page; however, please make sure that the Devpost page points to the actual outcome of your work.

Project Presentation: We will announce the schedule of project presentations (i.e. what time each presentation starts) by early morning of September X (Sun), EST. A Zoom link will be made available in the AnimalHack 2026 channel of Discord.

In our current plan, we will kick off around 10am of September X (Sun), EST. However, we may adjust this based on the locations (time zones) of presentation speakers.

You will have 10 minutes in total for your presentation, including approx. 3 minutes for QAs with judges and other participants.

Prizes and Judging

Certificates: Every participant will receive a certificate of participation.

Prizes: AnimalHack plans to offer a variety of prizes:

• Grand Prix (1st Place)
• 2nd Place
• 3rd Place
• Honorable Mentions (x3)
• Excellence in Innovation Award
• Excellence in Research Award
• Excellence in Creativity Award
• Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award
• Excellence in Social Impacts
• Excellence in Team Work
• Emerging Talent Award
• Key Contributor Award

A panel of judges will select and announce prize winners at the end of the event. Prize winners will receive special certificates.

Book chapter publication: We will publish a book that features the projects presented at AnimalHack 2026. Selected participants will be invited to document their projects as book chapters. We are planning to publish this book through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. See AnimalHack 2025 book for your reference.

Judging Criteria:

• Impact: How much impact (quality and quantity) can this project have? Does it solve a big problem or a small problem? Will it inspire or help many or a few?
• Creativity: How creative/innovative is this project? Is it something that hasn’t been attempted before, or is it an incremental improvement on something that already exists?
• Presentation: How well did the team/individual communicate this project? Was the presentation effective in telling the story of the project: why it is important, what challenge it addresses, and how it delivers a solution?

Judges:

Organizing Committee

• Naomi McCreary
• Hanna Suzuki (Co-chair)
• Alyssa Yasuhara (Co-chair)
• Rimi Yoshikawa

Merchandise