AI Coding Hackathon

What is the AI Coding Hackathon?

An intensive 48-hour hackathon where you build working AI prototypes – learning through doing, supported by experienced practitioners and a community of builders.

Instead of months of solo trial-and-error, you'll build alongside experienced practitioners and like-minded builders:

Hands-on building sessions with focused pattern introductions (Agentic Patterns, n8n blueprints) – just enough theory to start, then straight to implementation
Peer sparring while you build with other developers, founders, and innovation teams – learn by doing, together
Mentors available when you're stuck – not scheduled teaching slots, but real-time support when your code breaks
Real APIs and data from day one – no toy examples, but actual auth, schema validation, and production-ready patterns

By the end, you'll have a working AI prototype built with patterns you can immediately apply in your own projects – because you've already applied them here.

Who Is This Hackathon For?

You're already using AI tools and looking for structured peer sparring, best practices, and solid end-to-end proofs? Then you're in the right place.

Founders

Build your MVP yourself without waiting months for a technical co-founder. Spin up your zero-to-one prototype yourself.

Developers & Tech Leads

Deep dive into Agentic Patterns, guardrails, and n8n integration – finally get structured hands-on instead of endless YouTube tutorials.

Product Owners & Managers

Validate demo concepts without waiting for dev sprints. Build working prototypes to test ideas fast.

Automation Engineers

n8n blueprints for LLM integration, retry strategies, and rate-limit handling – practical and immediately applicable.

Prerequisites

Your own laptop
Interest in AI-assisted development

Drive to build something real in 48 hours
Optional: Experience with Vibe Coding, Claude Code, n8n

What You Can Build in 48 Hours

No theory workshops, no slide decks – just hands-on building with solid results.

AI-Powered Sales Assistant

A prototype that qualifies leads, drafts personalized outreach, and updates your CRM – combining real API integrations with agentic decision-making.

Smart Content Automation Pipeline

Build an n8n workflow that takes input (blog posts, docs, transcripts), generates social posts, and schedules them – end-to-end automation with LLMs.

Custom AI Agent for Your Use Case

Or bring your own idea: Whether it's a voice assistant, data analyzer, or process optimizer – you'll leave with a working prototype built on production-ready patterns.

Your Idea, Built for Real

Leave with a functional prototype of the solution you came to build – validated, tested, and ready for next steps.

Network of Fellow Builders

Connect with developers, founders, and innovators tackling similar challenges – partnerships often start here.

On-Demand Expert Guidance

Mentors who've shipped production AI systems help you when you're stuck – no scheduled lectures, just help when you need it.

Battle-Tested Patterns Applied

Learn by implementing: agentic workflows, n8n automations, real API handling – because you used them in your own project.

Program & Schedule

48 hours of hands-on building with mentor support and peer sparring.

Friday, November 21, 2025

5:00pm – Midnight

5:00pm

Kick-off & North Star

Welcome, team building, MVP cut (scope canvas, DoR/DoD, 48-h playbook)

6:00pm

Team Building & Project Pitches

Present ideas, form teams, or define solo projects

7:00pm

Start Hacking

Let's go! Pizza available, optional Vibe Coding 101 deep dive (Ben Sufiani)

Saturday, November 22, 2025

9:00am – Midnight

9:00am

Breakfast & Check-in

Group start to the day, project status updates

10:00am

Hacking & Optional Deep Dives

Build your project with mentor support (optional deep dives available)

12:00pm

Lunch Break

1:00pm

Hacking Continues

Afternoon building sessions with mentor support

3:00pm

Optional: Deep Dives or Office Hours

Join a deep dive session or get individual support from mentors and speakers

6:00pm

Pizza

9:00pm

Demo Rehearsal End of Day 1

Quick interim presentations, feedback round

Sunday, November 23, 2025

9:00am – 3:00pm

9:00am

Breakfast

Start your day with breakfast and coffee

10:00am

Final Sprint

Last optimizations, testing, demo preparation

12:00pm

Lunch

1:00pm

Demos & Pitches

Every team/solo presents their prototype (3-5 min per presentation)

3:00pm

Wrap-up & Networking

Feedback, lessons learned, next steps, community building

Important Notes

24/7 Access: You can stay and work at STARTPLATZ throughout the event
Meals Included: Breakfast and dinner are included in your ticket. For lunch, we recommend exploring the nearby restaurants and cafés.
Bring Your Own Laptop: Personal laptop required

Deep Dive Sessions

Optional focused sessions to level up your skills – join when it fits your project needs.

Friday Evening (optional)

Vibe Coding

Vibe Coding 101

Speaker: Ben Sufiani

Introduction to AI-assisted development fundamentals – perfect for getting started with the right mindset and workflow patterns.

Saturday (optional)

n8n Automation

n8n as Agentic Backend

Speaker: Marcel Claus-Ahrens

Webhook→LLM→Retry/Backoff flows
Schema validation & persistence
Rate-limit strategies

Vibe Coding

Vibe Coding - The New Power of Disposable Tools

Speaker: Danny Gerst

Agentic approach with Cursor and other IDEs
Rapid prototyping through AI assistance
From idea to working tool

No-Code AI

Introduction to Loveable

Speaker: Bernhard de Luca

No-code development with AI
Natural language app development
From idea to finished application

Emerging Deep Dives

Additional deep dive sessions may be added based on participant needs and emerging topics during the hackathon. Follow announcements on-site!

Who's Guiding You?

Learn from practitioners who work with these tools daily and build real products.

Ben Sufiani

Founder Pirate Skills, Vibe Coding Expert

15 years of startup experience as a serial founder (9 ventures). Since early 2025, deeply immersed in AI-assisted development – launched his own SaaS product CaptAIn with paying customers within 3 months. Founder of the Vibe Coding Cologne community.

Vibe Coding Growth Marketing Agentic Patterns

Marcel Claus-Ahrens

n8n Expert Partner & Ambassador (Level 2)

One of Germany's leading experts in process automation and AI agents. Founder of "let the work flow", Co-Founder & CTO at BOLD Technology UG. From graphic designer to sought-after AI and automation specialist with over 10 years of experience.

n8n Expert AI Agents LowCode/NoCode

Danny Gerst

CTO Linvelo, CEO bizness rocket

Over 30 years of experience as software developer, IT consultant, and IT project manager. Specialized in AI integration for medium-sized companies. As experienced startup founder, he combines deep technical expertise with entrepreneurial practice.

AI Integration Vibe Coding Digital Transformation

Bernhard de Luca

Founder & CEO of udansa, Lovable Ambassador

With over 15 years of experience in digital transformation, he has successfully delivered multi-million euro software projects. As a no-code development expert, he demonstrates how natural language web development is transforming the future of programming.

Data Strategy No-Code AI Vibe Coding

Organized By

STARTPLATZ

Largest coworking space and leading startup incubator in North Rhine-Westphalia. Community of 1,000+ startups & entrepreneurs, 200+ events per year.

Cologne & Düsseldorf

Multiply awarded

AI Hub

Specialized initiative within STARTPLATZ for AI startups and AI adoption. Expertise in LLM applications, agentic AI, and MLOps.

AI Engineering

AI Community

Pirate Skills

Growth marketing & AI coding community. Founder of the Vibe Coding Cologne meetups. Expertise in data-driven growth and AI-assisted development.

Growth Marketing

Vibe Coding

Our Partners

Gold Sponsor

KölnBusiness Wirtschaftsförderung

Whether startup or established company - with KölnBusiness you have the perfect partner at your side to be successful in the dynamic and culturally diverse metropolis on the Rhine.

Visit Website

Bronze Sponsor

n8n

n8n is a German workflow automation platform from Berlin that connects over 400 apps and services. The visual, node-based tool enables complex automations with a low-code/no-code approach and optional script extension – GDPR compliant and self-hostable.

Visit Website

Software Sponsors

ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is a leading AI audio research and development company specializing in ultra-realistic, expressive, and multilingual AI voices. The platform enables the generation of high-quality text-to-speech audio content for audiobooks, podcasts, videos, voiceovers, and interactive voice agents.

Website

Lovable

Lovable is an AI-powered no-code platform for creating web applications without programming knowledge. Describe your app idea in natural language – the AI automatically generates UI, logic, and database. Ideal for rapid prototyping and MVP development.

Website

Technology Partners

neuland.ai

neuland.ai is a leading AI technology company based in Cologne, Germany, with the secure and scalable AI platform neuland.ai HUB. With over 50 employees, the company offers trustworthy AI solutions for productivity enhancement and process automation – AI Made in Germany.

Website

Prizes & Awards

Win valuable software licenses and credits from our partners! All participants receive premium access, and the best teams will be honored with exclusive awards.

For All Attendees

ElevenLabs Creator Tier

3 Months Free

Value: $22/month

Premium AI voice generation for your projects during and after the hackathon.

n8n Cloud Pro

1 Month Free

140 licenses available

Professional workflow automation with advanced features and higher limits.

Lovable Credits & Mentoring

Credits + Support

Lovable Credits for your projects plus exclusive on-site mentoring from the Lovable team.

Main Awards

🏆 Overall Winners

ElevenLabs Pro Tier

3 Months per Team Member

Value: $99/month

The best project receives premium access with advanced features – perfect for continuing after the hackathon!

🎖️ Best Project Built with ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs Scale Tier

6 Months per Team Member

Value: $330/month

For the most innovative project using ElevenLabs AI Voice Technology – maximum resources for your continued development!

🥇 1st Place

n8n Cloud PRO

1 Year per Team Member

Professional workflow automation for the winning team.

🥈 2nd Place

n8n Cloud STARTER

1 Year per Team Member

Workflow automation for the second-place team.

🥉 3rd Place

n8n Cloud STARTER

1 Year per Team Member

Workflow automation for the third-place team.

🎓 aicellence Bootcamp - Veni vidi Automati

3 Bootcamp Seats

Value: Over €2,000 for the Team

The highest-ranking team that actively used n8n receives three exclusive seats in the two-week Veni vidi Automati Bootcamp by aicellence. Intensive hands-on experience to design, build, and deploy smart AI automations under expert guidance.

Date: December 2025 | Language: German

More Info

🏴‍☠️ Pirate Skills Forge Experience

Top 3 Vibe Coders

Total Value: €6,000 (€2,000 per Winner)

The top three vibe coders each win a complete Pirate Forge Experience – seats in both Builder Forge and Growth Forge (January–March 2026), valued at €1,000 per workshop.

🧱 Builder Forge

6-week live workshop: Learn AI-assisted vibe coding for your first SaaS product – from idea to working version.

More Info

📈 Growth Forge

6-week growth program: Learn to scale predictable MRR through growth experiments and product-market-fit signals.

More Info

🎯 STARTPLATZ AI Hub Community Access

For Winning Teams

1-Year Access for 5 People

Winning teams receive five 1-year accounts for the KI Campus Skool Community with free access to all STARTPLATZ AI Hub masterclasses and direct access to experts in the field.

Judging Criteria

Innovation

Implementation

Practicality

Presentation

What is the AI Coding Hackathon?

An intensive 48-hour hackathon where you build working AI prototypes – learning through doing, supported by experienced practitioners and a community of builders.

Instead of months of solo trial-and-error, you'll build alongside experienced practitioners and like-minded builders:

Hands-on building sessions with focused pattern introductions (Agentic Patterns, n8n blueprints) – just enough theory to start, then straight to implementation
Peer sparring while you build with other developers, founders, and innovation teams – learn by doing, together
Mentors available when you're stuck – not scheduled teaching slots, but real-time support when your code breaks
Real APIs and data from day one – no toy examples, but actual auth, schema validation, and production-ready patterns

By the end, you'll have a working AI prototype built with patterns you can immediately apply in your own projects – because you've already applied them here.

Who Is This Hackathon For?

You're already using AI tools and looking for structured peer sparring, best practices, and solid end-to-end proofs? Then you're in the right place.

Founders

Build your MVP yourself without waiting months for a technical co-founder. Spin up your zero-to-one prototype yourself.

Developers & Tech Leads

Deep dive into Agentic Patterns, guardrails, and n8n integration – finally get structured hands-on instead of endless YouTube tutorials.

Product Owners & Managers

Validate demo concepts without waiting for dev sprints. Build working prototypes to test ideas fast.

Automation Engineers

n8n blueprints for LLM integration, retry strategies, and rate-limit handling – practical and immediately applicable.

Prerequisites

Your own laptop
Interest in AI-assisted development

Drive to build something real in 48 hours
Optional: Experience with Vibe Coding, Claude Code, n8n

What You Can Build in 48 Hours

No theory workshops, no slide decks – just hands-on building with solid results.

AI-Powered Sales Assistant

A prototype that qualifies leads, drafts personalized outreach, and updates your CRM – combining real API integrations with agentic decision-making.

Smart Content Automation Pipeline

Build an n8n workflow that takes input (blog posts, docs, transcripts), generates social posts, and schedules them – end-to-end automation with LLMs.

Custom AI Agent for Your Use Case

Or bring your own idea: Whether it's a voice assistant, data analyzer, or process optimizer – you'll leave with a working prototype built on production-ready patterns.

Your Idea, Built for Real

Leave with a functional prototype of the solution you came to build – validated, tested, and ready for next steps.

Network of Fellow Builders

Connect with developers, founders, and innovators tackling similar challenges – partnerships often start here.

On-Demand Expert Guidance

Mentors who've shipped production AI systems help you when you're stuck – no scheduled lectures, just help when you need it.

Battle-Tested Patterns Applied

Learn by implementing: agentic workflows, n8n automations, real API handling – because you used them in your own project.

Program & Schedule

48 hours of hands-on building with mentor support and peer sparring.

Friday, November 21, 2025

5:00pm – Midnight

4:30pm

Doors Open & Registration

Registration & networking

5:00pm

Kick-off & North Star

Welcome, team building

6:00pm

Team Building & Project Pitches

Present ideas, form teams, or define solo projects

7:00pm

Dinner

Pizza

8:00pm

Hacking & Deep Dives

Let's go! Optional Vibe Coding 101 deep dive (Ben Sufiani)

Saturday, November 22, 2025

9:00am – Midnight

9:00am

Breakfast & Check-in

Group start to the day, project status updates

10:00am

Hacking & Optional Deep Dives

Build your project with mentor support (optional deep dives available)

12:00pm

Lunch Break

1:00pm

Hacking Continues

Afternoon building sessions with mentor support

3:00pm

Optional: Deep Dives or Office Hours

Join a deep dive session or get individual support from mentors and speakers

6:00pm

Dinner

Pizza

7:00pm

Evening Hacking

Continue building, mentors available

Sunday, November 23, 2025

9:00am – 3:00pm

9:00am

Breakfast

Start your day with breakfast and coffee

10:00am

Final Sprint

Last optimizations, testing, demo preparation

12:00pm

Lunch

1:00pm

Demos & Pitches

Every team/solo presents their prototype (3-5 min per presentation)

3:00pm

Wrap-up & Networking

Feedback, lessons learned, next steps, community building

Important Notes

24/7 Access: You can stay and work at STARTPLATZ throughout the event
Meals Included: Breakfast and dinner are included in your ticket. For lunch, we recommend exploring the nearby restaurants and cafés.
Bring Your Own Laptop: Personal laptop required

Deep Dive Sessions

Optional focused sessions to level up your skills – join when it fits your project needs.

Friday Evening (optional)

Vibe Coding

Vibe Coding 101

Speaker: Ben Sufiani

Introduction to AI-assisted development fundamentals – perfect for getting started with the right mindset and workflow patterns.

Saturday (optional)

n8n Automation

n8n as Agentic Backend

Speaker: Marcel Claus-Ahrens

Webhook→LLM→Retry/Backoff flows
Schema validation & persistence
Rate-limit strategies

Vibe Coding

Vibe Coding - The New Power of Disposable Tools

Speaker: Danny Gerst

Agentic approach with Cursor and other IDEs
Rapid prototyping through AI assistance
From idea to working tool

No-Code AI

No-Code AI: Web Development with Lovable

Speaker: Bernhard De Luca

Introduction to Lovable – the AI-powered no-code platform
Natural language web development in practice
Live demo: From idea to finished application in minutes
Hands-on: Participants build their own mini-app

Emerging Deep Dives

Additional deep dive sessions may be added based on participant needs and emerging topics during the hackathon. Follow announcements on-site!

Who's Guiding You?

Learn from practitioners who work with these tools daily and build real products.

Ben Sufiani

Founder Pirate Skills, Vibe Coding Expert

15 years of startup experience as a serial founder (9 ventures). Since early 2025, deeply immersed in AI-assisted development – launched his own SaaS product CaptAIn with paying customers within 3 months. Founder of the Vibe Coding Cologne community.

Vibe Coding Growth Marketing Agentic Patterns

Marcel Claus-Ahrens

n8n Expert Partner & Ambassador (Level 2)

One of Germany's leading experts in process automation and AI agents. Founder of "let the work flow", Co-Founder & CTO at BOLD Technology UG. From graphic designer to sought-after AI and automation specialist with over 10 years of experience.

n8n Expert AI Agents LowCode/NoCode

Danny Gerst

CTO Linvelo, CEO bizness rocket

Over 30 years of experience as software developer, IT consultant, and IT project manager. Specialized in AI integration for medium-sized companies. As experienced startup founder, he combines deep technical expertise with entrepreneurial practice.

AI Integration Vibe Coding Digital Transformation

Bernhard De Luca

Founder & CEO of udansa, Lovable Ambassador

With over 15 years of experience in digital transformation, he has successfully delivered multi-million euro software projects. As a no-code development expert, he demonstrates how natural language web development is transforming the future of programming.

Data Strategy No-Code AI Vibe Coding

Organized By

STARTPLATZ

Largest coworking space and leading startup incubator in North Rhine-Westphalia. Community of 1,000+ startups & entrepreneurs, 200+ events per year.

Cologne & Düsseldorf

Multiply awarded

AI Hub

Specialized initiative within STARTPLATZ for AI startups and AI adoption. Expertise in LLM applications, agentic AI, and MLOps.

AI Engineering

AI Community

Pirate Skills

Growth marketing & AI coding community. Founder of the Vibe Coding Cologne meetups. Expertise in data-driven growth and AI-assisted development.

Growth Marketing

Vibe Coding

Our Partners

Gold Sponsor

KölnBusiness Wirtschaftsförderung

Whether startup or established company - with KölnBusiness you have the perfect partner at your side to be successful in the dynamic and culturally diverse metropolis on the Rhine.

Visit Website

Bronze Sponsor

n8n

n8n is a German workflow automation platform from Berlin that connects over 400 apps and services. The visual, node-based tool enables complex automations with a low-code/no-code approach and optional script extension – GDPR compliant and self-hostable.

Visit Website

Software Sponsors

ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is a leading AI audio research and development company specializing in ultra-realistic, expressive, and multilingual AI voices. The platform enables the generation of high-quality text-to-speech audio content for audiobooks, podcasts, videos, voiceovers, and interactive voice agents.

Website

Lovable

Lovable is an AI-powered no-code platform for creating web applications without programming knowledge. Describe your app idea in natural language – the AI automatically generates UI, logic, and database. Ideal for rapid prototyping and MVP development.

Website

Prizes & Awards

Win valuable software licenses and credits from our partners! All participants receive premium access, and the best teams will be honored with exclusive awards.

For All Attendees

ElevenLabs Creator Tier

3 Months Free

Value: $22/month

Premium AI voice generation for your projects during and after the hackathon.

n8n Cloud Pro

1 Month Free

140 licenses available

Professional workflow automation with advanced features and higher limits.

Lovable Credits & Mentoring

Credits + Support

Lovable Credits for your projects plus exclusive on-site mentoring from the Lovable team.

Main Awards

🏆 Overall Winners

ElevenLabs Pro Tier

3 Months per Team Member

Value: $99/month

The best project receives premium access with advanced features – perfect for continuing after the hackathon!

🎖️ Best Project Built with ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs Scale Tier

6 Months per Team Member

Value: $330/month

For the most innovative project using ElevenLabs AI Voice Technology – maximum resources for your continued development!

🥇 1st Place

n8n Cloud PRO

1 Year per Team Member

Professional workflow automation for the winning team.

🥈 2nd Place

n8n Cloud STARTER

1 Year per Team Member

Workflow automation for the second-place team.

🥉 3rd Place

n8n Cloud STARTER

1 Year per Team Member

Workflow automation for the third-place team.

🎓 aicellence Bootcamp - Veni vidi Automati

3 Bootcamp Seats

Value: Over €2,000 for the Team

The highest-ranking team that actively used n8n receives three exclusive seats in the two-week Veni vidi Automati Bootcamp by aicellence. Intensive hands-on experience to design, build, and deploy smart AI automations under expert guidance.

Date: December 2025 | Language: German

More Info

🏴‍☠️ Pirate Skills Forge Experience

Top 3 Vibe Coders

Total Value: €6,000 (€2,000 per Winner)

The top three vibe coders each win a complete Pirate Forge Experience – seats in both Builder Forge and Growth Forge (January–March 2026), valued at €1,000 per workshop.

🧱 Builder Forge

6-week live workshop: Learn AI-assisted vibe coding for your first SaaS product – from idea to working version.

More Info

📈 Growth Forge

6-week growth program: Learn to scale predictable MRR through growth experiments and product-market-fit signals.

More Info

🎯 STARTPLATZ AI Hub Community Access

For Winning Teams

1-Year Access for 5 People

Winning teams receive five 1-year accounts for the KI Campus Skool Community with free access to all STARTPLATZ AI Hub masterclasses and direct access to experts in the field.

Judging Criteria

Innovation

Implementation

Practicality

Presentation

Build AI-Powered Productsin 48 Hours

What is the AI Coding Hackathon?

Who Is This Hackathon For?

Founders

Developers & Tech Leads

Product Owners & Managers

Automation Engineers

Prerequisites

What You Can Build in 48 Hours

AI-Powered Sales Assistant

Smart Content Automation Pipeline

Custom AI Agent for Your Use Case

Your Idea, Built for Real

Network of Fellow Builders

On-Demand Expert Guidance

Battle-Tested Patterns Applied

Program & Schedule

Friday, November 21, 2025

Kick-off & North Star

Team Building & Project Pitches

Start Hacking

Saturday, November 22, 2025

Breakfast & Check-in

Hacking & Optional Deep Dives

Lunch Break

Hacking Continues

Optional: Deep Dives or Office Hours

Pizza

Demo Rehearsal End of Day 1

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Breakfast

Final Sprint

Lunch

Demos & Pitches

Wrap-up & Networking

Important Notes

Deep Dive Sessions

Friday Evening (optional)

Vibe Coding 101

Saturday (optional)

n8n as Agentic Backend

Vibe Coding - The New Power of Disposable Tools

Introduction to Loveable

Emerging Deep Dives

Who's Guiding You?

Ben Sufiani

Marcel Claus-Ahrens

Danny Gerst

Bernhard de Luca

Organized By

STARTPLATZ

AI Hub

Pirate Skills

Our Partners

KölnBusiness Wirtschaftsförderung

n8n

ElevenLabs

Lovable

neuland.ai

Prizes & Awards

For All Attendees

ElevenLabs Creator Tier

n8n Cloud Pro

Lovable Credits & Mentoring

Main Awards

🏆 Overall Winners

🎖️ Best Project Built with ElevenLabs

n8n Cloud PRO

n8n Cloud STARTER

n8n Cloud STARTER

🎓 aicellence Bootcamp - Veni vidi Automati

🏴‍☠️ Pirate Skills Forge Experience

🧱 Builder Forge

📈 Growth Forge

🎯 STARTPLATZ AI Hub Community Access

Judging Criteria

What is the AI Coding Hackathon?

Who Is This Hackathon For?

Founders

Developers & Tech Leads

Build AI-Powered Products
in 48 Hours