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Running on Zero
A newer version of the Gradio SDK is available: 6.22.0
Build Small Hackathon
Org profile for Build Small Hackathon on Hugging Face. Source: https://huggingface.co/build-small-hackathon
Hosted by Gradio · Hugging Face Anchor Sponsors: OpenBMB · OpenAI · NVIDIA · Modal Cash & Prizes: $48k+
Backed by the best in AI
The folks making this adventure possible — the full roster, locked in.
From Your Hosts
- Hugging Face — $15,000 into the cash prize pool, plus $20 in Hugging Face credits for every participant. We're not just hosting the trail — we're packing the provisions too.
Anchor Sponsors
- OpenAI — $10,000 in cash prizes, plus $100 in Codex credits for the first 1,000 participants.
- NVIDIA — Two RTX 5080 GPUs 🔥 as physical prizes.
- Modal — $250 in Modal credits for every participant, plus $20,000 in credits for the winners.
- OpenBMB — $10,000 in special category prizes — split across both tracks for the standout OpenBMB picks.
Supporting Sponsors
- Cohere — $5,000 in cash prize contribution to the pool.
- JetBrains — $5,000 in cash prize contribution to the pool.
- Black Forest Labs — $3,000 in cash prize contribution to the pool.
Total Prize Pool: $48,000+ in cash & physical prizes across both tracks — plus per-participant credits ($100 Codex · $250 Modal · $20 Hugging Face).
Registrations are closed — and the trail is open! Sign-ups wrapped on June 3, 2026. Registered builders — the hack window is live, June 5–15. Hop into the Discord, find your teammates, and start building.
❋ Chapter Zero — Why this exists
The pace of AI over the last year has been anxiety-inducing. Labs release larger and larger models that do more of the things that make us feel human — writing, drawing, speaking, coding. No wonder more than half of us think the risks of AI outweigh the benefits.
We're sponsoring a hackathon to take things back to how they felt in 2021 — when models were small enough to tinker with, and the vibe was fun and hopeful about how this technology could improve our lives.
This hackathon is different. Rather than using a giant LLM to ship yet another B2B SaaS, we want you to think small. Armed with only 32 billion parameters, solve a problem someone you know is facing — or build something whimsical.
❋ Two Tracks · Pick your trail
Chapter One — 🏡 Backyard AI
Solve a real problem for someone you actually know. Pick a person — a neighbor, a parent, a small-business owner on your street — and build something that makes their day measurably better.
Judged on:
- Problem is specific and real
- The person actually used it
- Honest fit between problem and the small-model constraint
- Polish of the Gradio app
Chapter Two — 🍄 An Adventure in Thousand Token Wood
Build something delightful that wouldn't exist without AI. Wander somewhere weirder. A toy, a tiny game, a strange interactive story, an art experiment that surprises you. The AI should be doing the fun thing — not just helping you build it. Strange is good. Joyful is the bar.
Judged on:
- Genuinely delightful (would you show a friend?)
- AI is load-bearing for the experience
- Originality of concept
- Polish of the Gradio app
❋ The Constraints — Three rules of the trail
Pack light.
- Small Models Only — Total parameters must be ≤ 32 billion. The model fits on a laptop. So should your ambition.
- Built on Gradio — Your app must be a Gradio app, hosted as a Hugging Face Space. That's the canvas.
- Show, Don't Tell — A short demo video and a social-media post are part of the submission. Make it sing.
❋ Bonus Quests · Six earnable merit badges
None required. Each one grants extra points for your submission.
- 🔌 Off the Grid (Local-first) — No cloud APIs. The whole thing runs on the model in front of you.
- 🎯 Well-Tuned (Fine-tuned) — Your app uses a fine-tuned model you've published on Hugging Face.
- 🎨 Off-Brand (Custom UI) — A custom frontend that pushes past the default Gradio look.
- 🦙 Llama Champion (llama.cpp) — Your model runs through the llama.cpp runtime.
- 📡 Sharing is Caring (Open trace) — You shared your agent trace on the Hub for everyone to learn from.
- 📓 Field Notes (Tentative) — You wrote a blog post or report about what you built and what you learned.
❋ How to Participate
Four steps. No application. No waitlist.
- Register (Closed) — Registrations closed June 3, 2026. If you registered and joined this org, you're all set for the trail.
- Find your people — Hop into the Gradio Discord. AMAs. Connect with Gradio and HF folks. Potential teammates live there.
- Build & ship — Build your Gradio app and host it as a Space under this org.
- Submit — Drop your Space link, a short demo video, and a social post by the deadline.
❋ How to Get Started · Tools for the trail
- 📓 ML Intern
- 📚 Gradio Guides
- 🛠 Gradio's gr.Server — fully custom UIs
- 🦙 Getting Started with Llama.cpp
❋ Timeline · A hand-drawn map
Two weekends in the woods.
- ✓ May 07 – June 3, 2026 — Registration window. Now closed. Sign-ups wrapped June 3.
- June 5, 2026 — Hack window begins. You are here. Two weekends to build, ship, and demo.
- Mid-window — Live AMA. Ask the sponsors and Gradio team anything.
- June 15, 2026 — Submissions close. Space, demo video, social post locked in.
- [date TBD] — Winners announced. Per track, plus bonus-quest leaderboard.
Build something small.
Two weekends. Two tracks. The model on your laptop. The neighbor next door.
Registrations closed June 3 — the trail is open through June 15!