QVAC - Unleash edge AI

QVAC Hackathon I – Unleash Edge AI Welcome to the first official QVAC Hackathon, a 3-day global virtual build event (June 19–21, 2026) organised by the QVAC team at Tether to prove that local-first, privacy-preserving, decentralised AI is production-ready today. What's it about? Using the QVAC SDK (our single cross-platform JS API for on-device inference, RAG, P2P model sharing, delegated compute, fine-tuning and multimodal capabilities) you will build real applications that run entirely on consumer hardware (phones, laptops, SBCs) with zero cloud dependencies. This hackathon is not another generic AI event. Where looking for public demonstrations - by the community (i.e. you) - that edge AI powered by QVAC can deliver privacy, speed, resilience, and cost savings that to outmatch centralised providers. Why should I join? - A chance to win a significant "cash" prize - There are four awesome tracks that you can win even if you don't reach the global podium. Each track has its own "cash" prize for the primary winner and a possible secondary one for an honourable mention. - A nice opportunity to build something you can actually ship and own with no vendor lock-in and no API bills - A chance to get your project featured in the official upcoming QVAC community portfolio and many more possibility for exposure as we showcase the most impressive projects - Direct exposure to the QVAC by Tether team and potential partnerships - A great opportunity to contribute towards the open local-AI ecosystem What are the constraints? This is a BYOH (Bring Your Own Hardware) event, whatever you have available will do: flagship phone, high-end workstation, Raspberry Pi or anything in between. Since you can't bring your datacenter with you, performing inference on a cluster (even if it's your own private cloud) is not allowed. The only non-negotiables are: - All inference must use the QVAC SDK (`@qvac/sdk`) - Projects must be fully open-source (MIT / Apache 2.0) with clear README + reproducibility instructions - Submissions must include the full evidence bundle for our 3-stage verification process (more info here) Timeline Registration opens: May 18, 2026 Build weekend: June 19–21, 2026 (72 hours) Winner Announcement: July 3 Support & Resources - Full QVAC SDK documentation + starter templates QVAC engineers available in Discord/Keet during the build weekend Pre-built examples for completion, RAG, TTS/STT, Fabric fine-tuning, MedPsy usage Getting Started guide tailored for the hackathon (releasing soon) Official community: Discord/Keet link – to be added Ready to unleash edge AI? This is your chance to help prove that the future of AI is local, private and in your hands. Registration opens May 18. Join the conversation on Discord and follows on X at @qvac.