Build With AI - Buildathon
Google Developers
📌 About the Event
Build With AI – Buildathon is a high-intensity, hands-on engineering sprint co-organized by Elastic and GDG Cloud New Delhi.
Hosted at ThoughtWorks Technologies in Gurugram, this build-sprint focuses on the practical intersection of Generative AI (Google Gemini) and modern search ecosystems (Elasticsearch vector engines). Unlike typical long-format hackathons, this event is compressed into a fast-paced 4-hour build window designed to move ideas quickly into functional, shipped AI agents capable of parsing real-world datasets.
📅 Critical Timelines & Infrastructure Gates
- Date: Saturday, July 18, 2026 [Happening in 12 Days]
- Time: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM IST (7.5-Hour On-Site Sprint)
- Physical Venue Hub: ThoughtWorks Technologies, Sector 59, Gurugram, Haryana, India – 122011.
- Developer Hardware Requirements: Bringing a personal development laptop, charger, and headphones is mandatory.
- Structural Build Guardrail: No pre-built projects are allowed. All repositories must be initialized on-site. To ensure a fair competition, the actual challenge themes are kept sealed until 1:00 PM.
⏱️ Technical Program & Buildathon Schedule
- 09:30 AM – 10:00 AM | Registration & Networking On-site check-in, secure Wi-Fi onboarding, and team-formation matching via the physical “Looking For Team” dashboard.
- 10:00 AM – 10:15 AM | Opening Keynote Introduction by the GDG Cloud New Delhi lead core team.
- 10:15 AM – 10:30 AM | Elastic Ecosystem Deep Dive Technical walkthrough on accessing dedicated developer sandboxes, provisioning API credits, and utilizing free search/vector layers during the sprint.
- 10:30 AM | 🚀 Buildathon Hacking Window Commences System architecture design, data ingestion mapping, and model wiring.
- 01:00 PM – 01:45 PM | Lunch Break & Theme Unsealing Mid-day break with food provided. The official engineering themes and operational data parameters are formally unsealed at this time.
- 01:45 PM – 02:30 PM | Buildathon Core Execution Final integration sprint, error debugging, and endpoint verification.
- 02:30 PM – 03:00 PM | Code Submission Window Freezing repositories and pushing final functional MVPs to the evaluation gates.
- 03:00 PM – 03:30 PM | Live Judging & Demo Review Project evaluations based on outcome, technical complexity, and resident usability metrics.
- 03:30 PM Onwards | Closing Session & Swag Distribution Announcement of winners, distribution of premium Elastic x GDG swags, and photos.
👥 Team Formations & Roster Rules
- Scaling Bounds: Developers can compete solo or in cohorts up to a maximum of 3 members per team.
- Evaluation Equality: Judging is strictly based on the technical outcome, code cleanliness, and prototype usability, regardless of team size. Solo builders are evaluated on the exact same rubric as full trios.