Come build something ambitious with us at this vibe-coding hackathon hosted with our friends at Tavern.

This is an in-person sprint for founders, engineers, and builders who love shipping fast and turning ideas into real products.

Whether you’re hacking on a startup idea, experimenting with a new tool, or just want an excuse to build something cool with smart people around you - this hackathon is for you.

We’ll have a relaxed but high-energy environment where the focus is simple: build, ship, and learn.

Problem Statement

Build something that improves social connection and community.
Make it easier for people to meet, form friendships, find communities, stay consistent, and actually feel like they belong in a city like New York.

The Challenge Theme

Your project should clearly fit this theme:

Social connection
Community-building
Friendship and belonging
IRL meetups
Consistency and accountability
Helping people go from “we should hang” to actually hanging

Whether you’re hacking on a startup idea, experimenting with a new tool, or just want an excuse to build something cool with smart people around you, this hackathon is for you.

We’ll have a relaxed but high-energy environment where the focus is simple: build, ship, and learn.

What to Expect:

A demo on building AI agents using phinite for backend workflows (production mindset): tools, integrations, guardrails, and how to orchestrate multi-step actions.
3 hours of high-energy building
Small teams or solo builders (your choice)
Mixer time to meet collaborators, co-founders, and future teammates
A strong community vibe with people actually working on real things
Demos at the end so you can pitch, get feedback, and get visibility

Prizes will include Tavern perks, merch, and special community access.

Judges:

Frank Albanese - Ex-YC | Ex-Antler | Co-founder & CTO at Tavern.
Alime Karimova - Founder and Interior Designer working with tech founders and startup teams. Curator of tech events in NYC and the Bay Area. Winner, Antler × Lovable Hackathon.
Michele Bolognesi - Founding Chief of Staff at Obin AI | Previously worked on major European infrastructure, telecom, and media deals at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.
Celia Davis - Founder at Connext

Who Should Attend:

Founders and aspiring founders
Engineers (full stack, backend, frontend, AI)
Builders who like shipping fast
Anyone curious, ambitious, and hands-on

You don’t need a finished idea - just show up ready to build.

Hosts

Somya Gupta - The face of NYC startup ecosystem
Tavern - A physical social network. Imagine WeWork but 100x better.
Phinite is an enterprise-grade agentic AI orchestration platform, we help builders create AI agents that can reliably run real backend workflows (APIs, databases, ERP/CRM integrations), with production-grade guardrails like audit logs, RBAC, and PII masking built in.
Connext - Elevating career accessibility through professional matchmaking. Find your Next Connection. Launching soon.
InterConnect - AI-powered career-building platform designed to turn student potential into real-world progress.

Community Hackathon NYC - Powered by Lovable x Phinite.ai x Tavily