StepOne AI Engine Buildathon 2026
Project StepOne
📌 About the Event
The StepOne AI Buildathon is a high-stakes, national-level online hackathon focused on System Thinking and Agentic AI. Hosted by Project StepOne, a leader in experiential marketing, this challenge isn’t about writing a simple script; it’s about building a robust “Content Intelligence Engine.” The goal is to eliminate the manual grind of processing thousands of raw event photos and videos into marketing assets. Participants must build autonomous systems that can select the “best” media, understand platform-specific tones (LinkedIn vs. Instagram), and even conduct automated B2B market research.
ℹ️ Event Details
- Category: AI/ML, Marketing Automation, and Agentic Systems
- Organizer: Project StepOne
- Eligibility: Open to Indian builders (Students and Professionals)
- Team Size: 2 – 4 Members
- Effort Level: Very High (End-to-end automation required)
- Submission Type: Working Prototype, Walkthrough Video, and Architecture Documentation
📅 Important Dates
- Registration & Submission Deadline: 02 May 2026 (Closing in 3 days!)
- Evaluation Phase: 04 May 2026
- Top 10 Teams Announcement: 06 May 2026 (6:00 PM IST)
- Final Pitch & Winner Announcement: 07 May 2026 (1:00 PM IST)
- Mode: Fully Online
🏆 Prize Details and Value
- Mega Winner: ₹30,000 (For teams excelling in both challenges)
- 1st Prize (Per Category): ₹20,000
- 2nd Prize (Per Category): ₹15,000
- Career Perks: Direct Hiring Opportunities to join StepOne’s core product team to build their official AI platform.
- Recognition: Showcasing your architecture to a jury of founders and senior engineers.
🎯 The Two Major Challenges
- Content & Design Engine: Build a system that takes raw event media and autonomously generates publish-ready Instagram posts/stories, LinkedIn updates, and structured case studies.
- Market Intelligence Engine: Create an agent that researches brands, identifies competitors, finds decision-makers, and drafts personalized outreach sequences.
📦 Judging Criteria
- Robustness: Does the system work consistently across different event datasets?
- Platform Differentiation: Does it distinguish between the professional tone of LinkedIn and the visual “vibe” of Instagram?
- Architecture Clarity: Is the system modular, scalable, and well-documented?
- Logic: How does the AI decide which photo or video is “good enough” to be selected?