Hackathons

AWS AI Agent Global Hackathon

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz
Date: September 8, 2025 - October 22, 2025
Location: Remote
Placement: Participated

Working solo, this project enhanced ch, a Go-based AI CLI bringing Amazon Bedrock and LLM providers to the terminal. Time constraints limited the scope, but deepened understanding of Bedrock integration, IAM workflows, and cross-provider API design.

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

⭐ Top Coder Challenge

Team: Mehmet Yilmaz
Date: June 7, 2025
Location: Remote
Placement: 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’s top 10. The solo marathon overall sharpened my rapid-prototyping skills.

Sources:
GitHub repository, Challenge, Chamath’s tweet, Final leaderboard, Blog post

⭐ 2025 National Security Hackathon

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

Team Aspen built Guardian Grid, a smart-city evacuation platform, while simultaneously tackling a capture the flag security challenge for an industrial refrigeration system sponsored by Lineage, a global cold storage logistics provider. 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 repository, Event’s page, LinkedIn announcement, Blog post

The DocuSign Hackathon: Unlocked

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

Over the year-end 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. DocuInsight later became E&F Group Inc’s first product.

Sources:
Devpost challenge, Devpost submission, Demo #1, Demo #2, Live app, Blog post

⭐ ANARCHY October 2023 Hackathon

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

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:
GitHub repository, Blog post

NEAR MetaBUILD III Hackathon

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

Labeler NearBy was me and my close friends’ first real hackathon. The project’s goal/vision was 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 frontend scope and missed the prize window. The project nevertheless sparked a deep dive into dApps and cryptographic workflows.

Sources:
Devpost challenge, Devpost submission, Backend code, Frontend code, Blog post