CORE-ET Hackathon prizes and tracks are live
CORE-ET Hackathon prizes and tracks are live
The CORE-ET Hackathon is already moving: 300+ participants, 20+ submissions, and real performance improvements in the first week. Participants are opening PRs, running workloads on CORE-ET infrastructure, improving performance, and leaving behind notes that others can reuse.
This hackathon is about making open AI on open hardware concrete: pick a model, kernel, benchmark, or demo; run it locally, on sys-emu, or on CORE-ET board infrastructure; submit a GitHub PR; and leave a reproducible recipe that the next person can inspect, rerun, and improve. We have already seen work around model ports, YOLO runs, benchmark updates, CI feedback, and reproducible recipes. That is exactly the kind of contribution this hackathon is designed to reward.
Now, we are excited to announce the prize pool and competition tracks!
Prize pool
In partnership with Hugging Face and OpenHW Foundation, we are offering:
500 x $20 in Hugging Face Inference credits for hands-on participants
3 Digilent Arty A7-100T FPGA boards, sponsored by OpenHW Foundation
2 ET-SoC1 cards
Thank you to Hugging Face and OpenHW Foundation for helping make this possible.
HF Inference credits
The Hugging Face Inference credits are for participation. To claim them, join the Hugging Face hackathon organization, join the Discord, and DM the CORE-ET Hackathon bot with your Hugging Face nickname.
Competition tracks
Week 1 Spark Challenge: YOLO on ET-SoC1
Run the official YOLO target on ET-SoC1. The best valid board result wins one Digilent Arty A7-100T FPGA board.
YOLO has become the first clear short-term target because the community is already running it, improving board results, and using it as a practical path from first run to measured ET-SoC1 performance.
Deadline: Friday, July 10, end of day AoE.
Week 2 Spark Challenge
Another focused hardware challenge will be announced next week. One Digilent Arty A7-100T FPGA board will be awarded.
Deadline: Friday, July 17, end of day AoE.
Global Prize: Best Llama 3.2 1B performance
Best valid end-of-hackathon Llama 3.2 1B performance on ET-SoC1 wins one ET-SoC1 card.
Deadline: July 24, end of day AoE.
Global Prize: Most approved model ports
Highest number of approved model ports wins one ET-SoC1 card.
Deadline: July 24, end of day AoE.
Community Prize
The most supportive community member wins one Digilent Arty A7-100T FPGA board. Debugging sys-emu runs, explaining board access, reviewing PRs, writing recipes, and helping people get unstuck are all part of building the open AI hardware stack. That work counts too.
Deadline: July 24, end of day AoE.
Rules
One hardware board max per participant or team.
Valid submissions must leave enough proof for someone else to inspect and reproduce the result. For performance work, that means a clear model, board run, metric, and reproducible path. For porting work, that means the model source, config, artifacts, and enough notes for the port to be reviewed and rerun. CI results, leaderboard updates, and reusable recipes are part of the output.
How to participate
Join the Hugging Face hackathon organization, join the Discord, pick a target, and start small. A useful submission can be a model port, a kernel improvement, a benchmark update, a board run, a demo, or a recipe that helps others get unstuck.
The goal is simple: model, board, metric, proof. Ship!