Hacktoberfest Hacks @ All Things Open

Building high-performance apps under hackathon deadlines shouldn't mean spending half your weekend configuring complex databases or learning obscure query languages. Tiger Data extends PostgreSQL to give student developers an ultra-fast foundation for real-time data, time-series metrics, and complex analytics.

Why build with Tiger Data this weekend?

• Standard SQL Power: Query massive datasets instantly using the SQL you already know, with no complex NoSQL aggregation pipelines required.
  

• Unified Data Stack: Store relational user profiles and high-frequency metric streams side-by-side in a single database.
  

• Instant Dashboards: Serve lag-free, real-time frontend charts using pre-computed Continuous Aggregates.
  

• 90%+ Data Compression: Store millions of events on free-tier cloud instances without running out of disk space.
  

Whether you’re building real-time IoT monitoring, AI-driven analytics dashboards, or financial prediction engines, show us how Tiger Data powers your project. The team that demonstrates the most innovative, impactful, and performance-driven use of Tiger Data will take home some great prizes!

Build an original project that uses open-source or open-weight AI as an important part of how it works. Teams could create an agent skill, build with an open-weight large or small language model, or build or adapt an open-source model harness.

Play with industry-leading LLMs on a single account using the Snowflake APIs. Adding AI capabilities into your application can be as simple as a single CURL command to Snowflake’s REST API.

Build customized applications, RAG powered chat bots, or embed AI-powered features into your app in half the time with half the hassle. Get started for free with a special, student 120-day Snowflake trial and check out this repository for an example of the Snowflake REST API in action.

It’s time to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI using Google Gemini. Check out the Gemini API to build AI-powered apps that make your friends say WHOA. So, what can Gemini do for your hackathon project?

• Understand language like a human and build a chatbot that gives personalized advice
• Analyze info like a supercomputer and create an app that summarizes complex research papers
• Generate creative content like code, scripts, music, and more

Think of the possibilities… what will you build with the Google Gemini API today?

Shipping an AI app in a weekend means things can break, and when an agent is involved it’s not always obvious why. Sentry shows you exactly what went wrong (errors, slow requests, and what your agent actually did) so you can fix it before demo time instead of during it.

Ways to bring Sentry into your build this weekend

• Sentry MCP Server: Connect Sentry to your coding agent and let it pull issues, stack traces, and root-cause context straight into your editor.
• AI Agent Monitoring: Trace your agent’s LLM calls, tool calls, and token usage so you can see where it slows down or goes off the rails.
• Error Monitoring & Tracing: Drop in the SDK and catch crashes and performance bottlenecks across your frontend and backend.
• Seer: Let Sentry’s AI debugger find the root cause of an issue and suggest a fix.

Sign up for Sentry’s free 14-day trial (no credit card required) and check out the Sentry Cookbook for quick recipes to get started.

Anyone who uses Sentry will also be entered into a raffle for $50 Amazon Gitft Cards. Don’t forget to opt-in to the Sentry prize category when you submit!

DigitalOcean offers a reliable and easy-to-use cloud platform for every stage of your project. Leverage core services like Droplets, Managed Databases, and App Platform to build, deploy, and scale your application effortlessly. Building with AI? DigitalOcean Gradient™ AI enables you to build, train, and deploy machine learning models, including access to GPU infrastructure and serverless inference!

Sign up for DigitalOcean today and reach out to your MLH Coach for credits that you can use towards building your next great hack. Build with DigitalOcean’s robust cloud infrastructure for a chance to win some great prizes for you and each of your teammates!

Use one or more datasets from the City of Raleigh Open Data portal to build a useful, creative project that helps people better understand, navigate, or improve Raleigh. Strong submissions should make the data central to the project and clearly demonstrate a meaningful benefit for residents, visitors, local organizations, or city services.