AnimalHack 2026

We are back! Following the great success of AnimalHack 2025, 2024, and 2023, we are excited to invite you to this year's edition: AnimalHack 2026.

Website: https://animalhack.org/
Discord: https://discord.gg/ZBbTxuxND2
Email: animalhack1@gmail.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/animal.hack
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/18105021/

AnimalHack is a student-led online hackathon for anyone interested in animals, animal welfare, or human-animal relationships. Projects may focus on pets, service and assistance animals, farm animals, wildlife, or the environments in which animals live.

AnimalHack invites you to identify animal-related needs and challenges and develop a creative, technology-based solution.

Entry is free. You may work individually or in teams at any time before the project submission deadline. No previous hackathon experience is required.

AnimalHack is supported by Binnovative, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts.

Event Overview

Format: Fully online

Entry fee: Free

Participation: Individuals and teams

Eligibility: Open to participants of all ages and technical backgrounds. No previous hackathon experience is required.

Project period: Participants may work on their projects at any time before the submission deadline.

Project submission deadline: 12pm on September 12 (Sat), 2026, EST

Presentation registration deadline: 12pm on September 12 (Sat), 2026, EST

Online project presentations: September 13 (Sun), 2026, EST

Awards: 15+ awards recognize projects across a wide range of categories

Publication opportunity: Selected participants will be invited to publish chapters about their projects in the Binnovative Innovation Book series.

Merchandise: For a memory of your innovation! Purchases of official merch will help AnimalHack keep running.

Expected Project Topics

Expected project topics include, but are not limited to:

* Improving animal welfare and quality of life
* Supporting pet owners, caregivers, veterinarians, and animal-service professionals
* Supporting animal behavior, enrichment, training, and human-animal communication
* Supporting animal shelters, rescues, and foster programs
* Improving animal adoption, matching, outreach, and post-adoption support
* Reuniting lost pets with their families and preventing animals from becoming lost
* Monitoring and improving the environments in which animals live
* Supporting responsible animal agriculture, husbandry, and aquaculture
* Advancing humane and sustainable food-system innovation
* Monitoring, tracking, conserving, and protecting wildlife
* Promoting safe and humane coexistence between people and wildlife
* Preventing animal abuse, cruelty, poaching, and wildlife trafficking
* Improving accessibility and support involving service or assistance animals
* Educating the public about animals, ecosystems, and responsible animal care

Solutions can take many forms, including apps, games, social platforms, web sites/services, devices, sensors, robots, computer vision, data analysis, predictive models, visualization, data collection and management, educational resources, and 3D modeling/printing.

Book Publication

We will publish a book that features the projects presented at AnimalHack 2026. Selected participants will be invited to extend their project abstracts and publish them as book chapters. We are planning to publish this book through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. See the books published in the prior editions of AnimalHack:
* AnimalHack 2023 book
* AnimalHack 2024 book
* AnimalHack 2025 book

Organizers

* Naomi McCreary
* Hanna Suzuki (Co-chair)
* Alyssa Yasuhara (Co-chair)
* Rimi Yoshikawa

Requirements

Project Work

AnimalHack is a “flexible” online hackathon. You can work on your project anytime before the deadline.

Project Submission

Complete ALL of the following 3 requirements:

Submit your project to Devpost by 12pm on September 12 (Sat), EST.
Register your project presentation through the designated Google Form by 12pm on September 12 (Sat), EST.
Deliver a project presentation online on September 13 (Sun), EST.

The deadlines are firm. No extensions will be given. Failure to meet all 3 requirements will disqualify you (and your team) for award consideration.

The form for presentation registration will be shared in the AnimalHack 2026 channel in Discord. You will be asked to provide:

* Presenter name and contact information
* Country of residence (time zone)
* Project title
* Project abstract (brief one-paragraph project description)
* Publicly accessible link to your project

The project link may direct to a code repository such as GitHub, a shared storage such as Google Drive, a live application, or another publicly accessible location. The link must provide evidence of your project’s actual outcome—not only a description or proposal.

We will use this link to verify the actual outcome of your work and confirm its relevance to AnimalHack. Please note that we will not schedule your presentation if we cannot access or verify your actual work.

Project Presentation

We will announce the schedule of project presentations (i.e. what time each presentation starts) by early morning of September 13 (Sun), EST. A Zoom link will be shared in the AnimalHack 2026 channel in Discord.

In our current plan, we will kick off at 10am on September 13 (Sun), EST. However, we may adjust this to accommodate presenters in different time zones.

You will have 10 minutes in total for your presentation, including approx. 3 minutes for QAs with the judges and other participants.

Hackathon Sponsors