Hackathons

AWS AI Agent Global Hackathon

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz
Date: October 2025
Location: Remote
Placing: Participated

Working solo under tight time constraints, I enhanced Ch, a lightweight Go-based CLI that brings Amazon Bedrock and other major LLM providers directly into the terminal with speed, transparency, and user control. Though time limitations prevented the full vision, the submission deepened my understanding of Bedrock integration, IAM workflows, and cross-provider API design. The experience reinforced the value of building tools that stay true to their core principles even under pressure.

Sources:
Devpost submission, Project website, GitHub repository, Demo video

⭐ Top Coder Challenge

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz
Date: June 7, 2025
Location: Remote
Placing: 7 / 425

In a single-day, 8 hour, sprint I reverse-engineered a decades-old travel-reimbursement model using classical ML and heuristics. The solution matched hidden test cases closely enough to break into the leaderboard (top 10). The solo marathon sharpened my data-forensics and rapid-prototyping skills.

Sources:
GitHub submission, Challenge repository, Chamath tweet, Final leaderboard tweet, My blog recap

⭐ 2025 National Security Hackathon

Team: Christina Huang, Dylan Eck, Loana Munteanu & Mehmet Yilmaz
Date: April 26-27, 2025
Location: San Francisco
Placing: $5,000 Special Prize & Honorable Mention

Team Aspen built Guardian Grid, a smart-city evacuation platform, while simultaneously tackling a refrigeration-security side challenge. The dual-track gamble won the largest cash award and earned special kudos from the judges. The weekend forged lifelong friendships and produced a production-ready prototype.

Sources:
GitHub submission, Event page, LinkedIn announcement, Project page

The DocuSign Hackathon: Unlocked

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz & Dylan Eck
Date: November 20, 2024 - January 27, 2025
Location: Remote
Placing: Participated

Over the holidays my close friend and I engineered DocuInsight, an AI-powered contract-simplification service that plugs directly into DocuSign. Although it missed the leaderboard, we built a product that we are all very proud of. The experience taught us as much about shipping production software as it did about hackathon crunch time.

Sources:
Devpost challenge, Devpost submission, Demo video #1, Demo video #2, Live app, My project write-up

⭐ ANARCHY October 2023 Hackathon

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz, Ben Zimmerman & Ananya Aithal
Date: August 30, 2023 - September 6, 2023
Location: Remote
Placing: 1st Place

Our project InsightRed mined Reddit comments with an LLM-powered pipeline to surface high-intent leads for product launches. It impressed the judges and secured the top spot (1st place), leading to a later part-time role at Anarchy (YC W23). The win validated both the product idea and the power of a cohesive remote team.

Sources:
Project write-up

NEAR MetaBUILD III Hackathon

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz & Dylan Eck
Date: September 23, 2022 - November 21, 2022
Location: Remote
Placing: Participated

Labeler NearBy aimed to decentralize AI data-labeling on the NEAR blockchain, offering researchers a transparent alternative to centralized platforms. We shipped most of the backend but underestimated front-end scope and missed the prize window. The project nevertheless sparked a deep dive into dApps and cryptographic workflows.

Sources:
Devpost challenge, Devpost submission, Code part 1, Code part 2, Project write-up