Festival program dataset
Use the Festival 2026 program dataset to explore the festival from new angles.
City of Linz open data
Combine it with a curated selection of open city data to create new ways of experiencing Linz.
A sub-event of Ars Electronica Festival 2026
AI Hackathon
September 11–12, 2026 // Grand Garage, Linz
Develop apps, guides, interactive maps, storytelling tools, artistic AI projects, or entirely new ideas that combine the festival program dataset with open data from the City of Linz. We will develop and experiment together for two days, and the best projects are honored on Saturday afternoon. The goal is to find new approaches that let people experience Linz and the festival differently.
Registration at a glance
- Deadline
- September 7, 2026
- Who can join
- Anyone aged 14 or older — no prior coding experience required
- Participation
- Join alone, request team matching, or participate as an existing team of two to five people
- Cost
- Free; registration is required
Two data worlds to combine
Linz neu entdecken
Tutorials and walkthroughs
The German learning section offers three short tutorials on setup, pi.dev, and prompting, plus three project walkthroughs with selectable levels of support.
Development & AI, your choice
When registering, choose from three options: work with your own setup, use OpenRouter access to Mistral Medium 3.5 with a budget of $20 per person, or choose a fully browser-based development environment hosted in Austria with pi.dev preinstalled. The AI add-on is also required to use the hosted development environment.
What happens when
- July 21–September 7, 2026RegistrationRegister for free on the City of Linz participation platform.
- After registrationPractical informationRegistered participants receive the detailed schedule by email.
- Friday, September 11, 2026, 09:30–18:00Kick-off & hackingDoors open at 09:00. The kick-off at 09:30 covers impulses, the challenges, the mentors, and team matching, followed by hacking with mentor support.
- Saturday, September 12, 2026, 09:30–16:00Hacking & pitchesDoors open at 09:00. After hacking and mentoring in the morning, you present your project or demo in a voluntary short pitch in the afternoon.
- Saturday afternoon, September 12, 2026Community voting & award ceremonyThe community votes on the projects, and the winning teams are honored right afterwards at the award ceremony, followed by a group photo.
Parallel hackathon: Beijing · Linz
While we hack in Linz, Ars Electronica is co-organizing the Beijing–Linz Joint Hackathon: City of the Future — 48 hours online with more than 300 students from over 100 Chinese universities. Selected projects will be shared with the Ars Electronica community afterwards.