Plug and Play x PMAI Hackathon: Rapid Response #AIWeekNY
about this event
Plug and Play x PMAI Hackathon: Rapid Response #AIWeekNY — Three challenges. Three rounds. 45 minutes each.
Most hackathons give you hours — sometimes days — to solve one problem. Rapid Fire is different. In this fast-paced, emergency-response-themed hackathon, participants will compete in teams of 2–4 across a series of short challenges designed to test how quickly you can understand a problem, make decisions, build a solution, and communicate your thinking under pressure.
Each round will introduce a new emergency-response scenario. Your team will have roughly 45 minutes to develop and submit a solution before moving immediately into the next challenge. No long build cycle. No endless polishing. You'll have to prioritize what matters, divide responsibilities quickly, and make tradeoffs in real time.
How It Works Participants will form teams of 2–4 people. Over the course of the event, teams will face 3–4 short emergency-response challenges, revealed one at a time. For each round: a new problem is announced; teams have approximately 45 minutes to respond; teams submit their solution before the deadline; judges score the submissions; the next challenge begins. Scores accumulate across the rounds, and the team with the strongest overall performance wins. The challenges may involve areas such as emergency coordination, communication, resource allocation, information management, public safety, or rapid decision-making.
What Are We Looking For? You do not need to build a fully finished product. Depending on the challenge, your submission could be a prototype, workflow, AI agent, product concept, operational system, or another practical solution. What matters is your ability to identify the real problem, prioritize under pressure, build quickly, make smart tradeoffs, and explain why your solution works.
Who Should Join? This event is designed for a mix of engineers, designers, product managers, founders, operators, students, and anyone interested in building with AI. You do not need to be highly technical to participate. Strong teams will likely combine different skill sets — technical, product, design, operations, and strategy. Come with teammates or meet people at the event.
Why Rapid Fire? Real emergencies rarely give you perfect information, unlimited resources, or weeks to plan. They demand fast thinking, clear priorities, and decisive execution. Rapid Fire is an experiment in building the same way: under constraints, against the clock, and as a team. Think fast. Build fast. Respond faster.
Schedule 5:00 – 5:30 Check-in, Team Formation & Food 5:30 – 5:45 Keynote: Sharing by PMAI Team 5:45 – 6:30 First Problem 6:30 – 7:15 Second Problem 7:15 – 8:00 Third Problem 8:00 – 8:30 Judging Session 8:30 – 9:00 Winners Announcement & Group Photos
Sponsorship Enquiry: https://community.pioneeringminds.ai/forms/c50df13a
About Plug and Play Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we're present in 60+ locations across 25+ industries. We offer corporate innovation programs, helping our partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also run startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC where we've invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit Plug and Play.
About Vibranium Labs At Vibranium Labs, we build Tony SRE, a 24/7 OnCall AI Incident Commander that proactively hunts down production issues before engineers ever get paged. We help hyperscaling startups and enterprises stay ahead of incidents, cut the 3am wake-ups, and ship with confidence. We're backed by Plug and Play, a16z, Franklin Templeton, Gaingels, and others. Our mission: Get ahead of incidents, not just respond — Tony SRE proactively investigates your systems around the clock, surfacing issues and root causes before anyone gets paged. Kill on-call burnout — give teams their nights and weekends back by catching problems early, so humans step in only when it truly matters. Build lasting reliability — every incident makes Tony SRE smarter; it learns your systems, improves your workflows, and becomes the living runbook your team actually uses.
About Pioneering Minds AI: At pioneeringminds.ai, we grow AI native pioneers who build, deploy, and govern AI responsibly and put humans at the front seat. We help YOU — our AI pioneers — to truly understand AI and create real value out of AI. Our mission is straightforward: Accelerate Innovation — equip participants with cutting-edge AI tools to deliver rapid prototypes. Foster Collaboration — unite diverse teams of students, engineers, and civic leaders to tackle urban challenges head-on. Create Lasting Impact — offer continued mentorship and post-event partnerships so promising concepts can scale beyond the weekend.
This event is part of #AIWeekNY by Pulse NYC — a community-led festival celebrating innovation across the AI ecosystem. Learn more at https://pulse.nyc/ai-week/
when
Check-in, Team Formation & Food
Check-in, team formation and food.
◍ TBAKeynote: Sharing by PMAI Team
Keynote sharing session by the PMAI team.
◍ TBAFirst Problem
The first emergency-response challenge is announced and teams respond.
◍ TBASecond Problem
The second emergency-response challenge is announced and teams respond.
◍ TBAThird Problem
The third emergency-response challenge is announced and teams respond.
◍ TBAJudging Session
Judges score the submissions.
◍ TBAWinners Announcement & Group Photos
Winners are announced and group photos are taken.
◍ TBAtickets
| tickets | price | Fee | Status | description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Registration | Free | TBA | Available | Free entry to the AI Hackathon. |