Build for the Border - Immigrant Hackathon NYC | $30K+ credit prizes

NYC's First Immigrant Hackathon The immigration system is broken. You already know this because you've lived it. On May 9th, we're bringing 250+ immigrant founders, engineers, and builders in NYC for a one-day sprint to build the products that fix it along with a supercool fireside chat. This is the biggest one-day hackathon for the immigrant builder community. Come with an idea, come without one - just come ready to ship something real. 🧩 Problem Statement Every year, millions of brilliant people try to move to, build in, or stay in the US and get crushed by systems designed for no one. Lawyers are expensive, timelines are brutal, and "becoming American" is a full-time job nobody trained you for. We're bringing together the people most affected by this to build software that actually helps. 🎯 The Challenge - Two Tracks Founder Immigration: visas (O-1, EB-1A, H-1B alternatives), company formation, cross-border ops, stay-in-the-US strategy tools.Learning to be American: onboarding, cultural + system navigation (banking, credit, healthcare, housing, taxes), tools for the first 1,000 days. 📅 What to Expect 10:00 – 11:00 AM — Doors open: mixer + team formation. Meet your future co-founder (hopefully).11:00 – 11:45 AM — Fireside chat & panel with Monji Dolon, Founder of measured (yc-backed).11:45 AM – 12:00 PM — Partner intros, sponsor demos, and official hackathon kickoff (theme, rules, judging criteria)12:00 – 5:00 PM — 5-hour build sprint (lunch provided)5:00 – 6:00 PM — Live demos, judging, and prize ceremony 🏆 Prizes SimpleApply credits$10K Alai credits - They helps people create high quality presentations with AI$500+ Featherless.ai credits$15k+ Tavily creditsFree access to MigrateMate 👨‍⚖️ Judges Our judges are a mix of YC-backed founders, immigrant builders, and investors. Anmol Sood - founder of Alai, a Y-Combinator backed startup helping people create high quality presentations with AI.Siam Hossain - Messenger of Migration Movement | Ecosystem Builder.Arpit Gupta - Investor at Polygon Labs.D. J. Patel - VCNoémie Lachman - Founding Engineer at Migrate MateAnoop Shukla - Principal Engineer at Oracle Healthcare and AI 🙋 Who Should Attend Immigrant founders and aspiring foundersEngineers (full stack, backend, AI/ML) who want to build with purposeInternational StudentsAnyone who has navigated a visa, a green card, or the US immigration systemBuilders who care about making systems more human You don't need a finished idea or a team. Just freakin show up. Our Sponsors Community Sponsors JYC Law PC - Immigration, real estate, and general legal counseling for individuals, families, and professionals — available 7 days a week. In-person consultations by appointment. Call us now at (201) 597-9354Simple-apply.ai - We help job seekers and Career Coaches land more job interviews Credits Sponsors Lovable - Build and deploy apps using natural language.Featherless.ai gives developers instant access to 25,000+ open-source AI models through a single API — no setup, no infra, just build.Tavily - Web search for AI agents Hosts Somya Gupta - The face of NYC startup ecosystem.Pulse NYC AI - A community, incubator, and venture fund built for founders, researchers, and technologists shaping the future of AI in New York City.CAST-GNY - cross-discipline nonprofit.Bond AI - The trusted community for AI events, connecting 140K+ builders & ecosystem partners.