Amazon and AWS have launched registration for the global Build, Ship, Shape: Amazon Developer Hackathon, a virtual competition geared toward independent developers, engineers, and startups creating next-generation autonomous AI agents, cloud architectures, and ambient computing experiences.
The challenge focuses on integrating foundation models via Amazon Bedrock, agentic reasoning pipelines through AgentCore or Amazon SageMaker, and multimodal interactions across the broader Amazon device ecosystem (Fire TV, Alexa+, and connected smart hardware).
About the Event
- Format: 100% Online and free to join worldwide.
- Submission Deadline: October 23, 2026 at 17:00 EDT (21:00 UTC).
- Technical Scope: Building autonomous AI agents, developer productivity tooling, or voice and vision applications powered by AWS infrastructure.
Prizes
- Grand Prize — USD 50,000 cash + USD 10,000 in AWS credits + 1:1 Strategy Architecture Session with the Amazon team
- Second Place — USD 25,000 cash + USD 5,000 in AWS credits
- Third Place — USD 15,000 cash + USD 2,500 in AWS credits
- Best Autonomous Agent with Amazon Bedrock — USD 15,000 cash + USD 5,000 in credits
- Best Multimodal Application (Voice / Vision / Devices) — USD 15,000 cash + USD 2,500 in credits
- Smart Home / Fire TV Innovation Prize — USD 10,000 cash + USD 2,500 in credits
- Honorable Mentions (×5) — USD 2,000 cash each + AWS cloud credits
Submission Requirements
- Required Stack: Projects must incorporate at least one core AWS service or Amazon developer API (such as Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, AWS Lambda, or device SDKs).
- Deliverables:
- Public GitHub code repository containing comprehensive setup documentation.
- Video demonstration under 3 minutes explaining the problem statement, agent architecture, and end-to-end functionality.
- Working deployment URL or test environment credentials for jury review.
References
- Build, Ship, Shape: Amazon Developer Hackathon on Devpost — Official registration portal, contest rules, and evaluation criteria. Date: 2026-09-01. Type: Devpost Challenge.
- Amazon Bedrock Documentation — Official developer guide for agent orchestration and foundational model deployment. Date: 2026-08-15. Type: Technical Documentation.
- AWS Generative AI Developer Hub — Architectural patterns, open-source templates, and production runbooks for autonomous systems. Date: 2026-08-20. Type: Technical Documentation.
