About the challenge
Put intelligence in people's pockets. The Sydney Mobile AI Hackathon (AI On Apple — Sydney) brings together Sydney's most ambitious developers, designers, founders and creators for one intense weekend of building AI-native apps for Apple platforms.
Over the weekend you'll form a team, take an idea from concept to a working prototype, learn directly from experienced builders, and present your creation to a panel of founders, senior engineers and industry partners. Expect workshops, mentoring, great food, new collaborators and a room full of people who want to ship something remarkable.
This is not a weekend of slide decks and hypothetical ideas. It's a hands-on build sprint focused on what becomes possible when intelligence runs directly on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision Pro.
When: Friday 23 – Sunday 25 October 2026
Where: Level 3, 20 Martin Place, Sydney CBD, NSW (in person)
You might build:
- A private, offline experience powered by an on-device LLM or vision model
- An intelligent agent or assistant that feels native to the device
- A multimodal product combining voice, camera, sensors and spatial computing
- An AI application that creates meaningful social or community impact
- Something nobody in the room has seen before
Tracks — every track ends with a working demo:
- Enterprise — Solve a real business problem with AI on Apple platforms.
- Community Impact — Build for social good and real human impact.
Sponsors: SCX — Australian-headquartered sovereign AI infrastructure, with Foundation Models support in SCXSwiftKit — and ElevenLabs for voice and conversational AI. Every attendee receives A$100 of SCX credit and US$22 of ElevenLabs credit to build with.
Schedule
- Friday 23 October: 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm — Pre-event
- Saturday 24 October: 10:00 am – 8:00 pm — Hacking time
- Sunday 25 October: 10:00 am – 2:00 pm — Hacking time
- Sunday 2:00 pm: Judging, closing ceremony & event wrap
Schedule is subject to change before the weekend.
Get started
You don't need to arrive with a team or a finished idea. We're looking for iOS, macOS, visionOS, tvOS, AI/ML and full-stack developers; product designers and creative technologists; founders and independent builders; first-time hackers ready to learn; and experienced engineers ready to push the technology further.
Bring your Mac, your curiosity and the willingness to build fast. Every person on a team needs their own ticket.
Attendance is application-based so we can create a strong, balanced room across engineering, product, design and AI. Apply on Luma: luma.com/apple-ai-hackathon.
Still unsure? Email events@theappblueprint.io.
The Sydney Mobile AI Hackathon is an independent event and is not endorsed by Apple Inc. Apple and related trademarks are the property of Apple Inc.
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