Caltech Longevity Hackathon 2026 is a 32-hour build sprint at the intersection of biology, neuroscience, AI, medicine, and entrepreneurship with a $4,000 prize fund! 

For one weekend at Caltech, a hand-picked cohort of students, researchers, builders, designers, and founders will come together around one question:

How do we extend healthy human life?

Participants will build prototypes, tools, models, platforms, and startup concepts that address real challenges in longevity science and human health. You’ll work alongside mentors, judges, sponsors, and researchers from the longevity, biotech, AI, and startup ecosystems.

This is not just a coding weekend. It is a full immersion into the future of healthspan: technical building, scientific exploration, career networking, founder energy, biological age testing, sponsor demos, featured talks, and a final Demo Day with judges and investors.

What makes this hackathon special

The Caltech Longevity Hackathon brings together builders from multiple disciplines — computer science, biology, neuroscience, medicine, design, product, and entrepreneurship — to create projects that could become real research tools, health technologies, or startups. Participants can compete across three tracks:

Build new benchmark tasks for large language models in longevity biology. Extend the LongevityBench framework, create agentic automation pipelines, and evaluate fine-tuned longevity-focused LLMs.

Build an interactive web app mapping the ARDD conference community — the leading aging research and drug discovery event. Projects may include rich profiles, in-app messaging, search, recommendations, networking tools, or a working demo for ARDD 2026.

Form a longevity startup concept in any vertical — diagnostics, therapeutics, wellness, data infrastructure, consumer health, clinical tools, or AI health systems. Build a prototype, craft a pitch deck, and demo live to investors.

Saturday, May 23

8:30 AM — Networking breakfast & registration
9:00 AM — Opening ceremony: tracks, prizes, mentors
10:00 AM — Sponsor booths open & mentorship begins
12:00 PM — Longevity biomarker blood draw with lab partners
1:00 PM — Longevity lunch
5:00 PM — Insilico Medicine featured talk
6:00 PM — Career dinner and company recruiting showcase
8:30 PM — Longevity Rave
9:00 PM — All-night hacking marathon

Sunday, May 24

8:00 AM — Morning meditation with Wen Chen
9:00 AM — Longevity breakfast
10:30 AM — Functional strength training with Richie Diaz
12:00 PM — Longevity biomarker blood draw with lab partners
12:30 PM — Longevity lunch
1:00 PM — Calico Labs featured talk
2:00 PM — Project submission deadline
3:00 PM — Team pitches
5:00 PM — Prize ceremony
6:00 PM — Hackathon ends

Prize pool is valued at $4,000, including longevity products, conference opportunities, mentorship, and seed-stage introductions for top teams.

Build something that matters!

• Innovation (20%)
  Originality and creativity of the idea
• AI Implementation (25%)
  AI is core to the solution; technically sound
• Health Impact (25%)
  Addresses a real health/longevity problem with clear relevance
• Demo Quality (15%)
  Working prototype that demonstrates the concept
• Presentation (15%)
  Clear, compelling pitch (3–5 slides)