AnimalHack 2026

Expected Project Topics

Expected project topics include, but are not limited to: 

• Improving animal welfare and quality of life
• Supporting pet owners, caregivers, veterinarians, and animal-service professionals
• Supporting animal behavior, enrichment, training, and human-animal communication
• Supporting animal shelters, rescues, and foster programs
• Improving animal adoption, matching, outreach, and post-adoption support
• Reuniting lost pets with their families and preventing animals from becoming lost
• Monitoring and improving the environments in which animals live
• Supporting responsible animal agriculture, husbandry, and aquaculture
• Advancing humane and sustainable food-system innovation
• Monitoring, tracking, conserving, and protecting wildlife
• Promoting safe and humane coexistence between people and wildlife
• Preventing animal abuse, cruelty, poaching, and wildlife trafficking
• Improving accessibility and support involving service or assistance animals
• Educating the public about animals, ecosystems, and responsible animal care

Solutions can take many forms, including apps, games, social platforms, web sites/services, devices, sensors, robots, computer vision, data analysis, predictive models, visualization, data collection and management, educational resources, and 3D modeling/printing. 

Requirements

Project Work: AnimalHack is a “flexible” online hackathon. You can work on your project anytime before the deadline.

Project Submission: Complete ALL of the following 3 requirements:

• Submit your project to Devpost by 12pm on September 12 (Sat), EST.
• Register your project presentation through the designated Google Form by 12pm on September 12 (Sat), EST.
• Deliver a project presentation online on September 13 (Sun), EST.

The deadlines are firm. No extensions will be given. Failure to meet all 3 requirements will disqualify you (and your team) for award consideration.

The form for presentation registration will be shared in the AnimalHack 2026 channel in Discord. You will be asked to provide:

• Presenter name and contact information
• Country of residence (time zone)
• Project title
• Project abstract (brief one-paragraph project description)
• Publicly accessible link to your project

The project link may direct to a code repository such as GitHub, a shared storage such as Google Drive, a live application, or another publicly accessible location. The link must provide evidence of your project’s actual outcome—not only a description or proposal.

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 access or verify your actual work.

Project Presentation: We will announce the schedule of project presentations (i.e. what time each presentation starts) by early morning of September 13 (Sun), EST. A Zoom link will be shared in the AnimalHack 2026 channel in Discord.

In our current plan, we will kick off around 10am of September 13 (Sun), EST. However, we may adjust this to accommodate presenters in different time zones.

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

Prizes and Judging

Certificates: Every participant will receive a certificate of participation.

Prizes: AnimalHack plans to recognize outstanding projects with the following awards:

• Grand Prize
• 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 Impact
• Excellence in Team Work
• Emerging Talent Award
• Key Contributor Award

A panel of judges will select the award recipients. Winners will be announced at the conclusion of the event and will receive award 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 and innovation: How original is this project? Does it introduce a new idea, combine existing ideas in a creative way, or significantly improve an existing solution?
• Execution: How successfully is the idea developed into a functional, demonstrable, or well-supported outcome?
• Presentation: How clearly and effectively did the participant or team explain the problem, the importance of the project, the proposed solution, and the project’s results?

Judges:

Organizing Committee

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

Merchandise