From Joining Hackathons to Organizing One

I've joined quite a few hackathons over the years. I've competed, built projects under ridiculous time constraints, stayed up all night debugging, and experienced both winning and losing.

But I've never organized one.

Until last weekend.

On October 9–10, 2026, we held the AppBuilders PH Hackathon 2026, bringing together developers, designers, students, and builders from across the Philippines.

And the numbers still surprise me.

• 1,200+ registered participants
• 400+ teams
• 281 project submissions
• 500+ people at our venue
• 24 hours to build
• 11 days to organize everything

All of this started with an idea just 11 days before the event.

It started with a simple idea

I've always believed that the Philippines has no shortage of talented developers. What we need are more opportunities for people to build, experiment, and show what they're capable of.

That's one of the reasons I started AppBuilders PH.

What began as a community for people who love building applications has grown into a community of over 50,000 members.

We've organized meetups, Show & Tell events, and other opportunities for developers to connect.

But I wanted to try something bigger.

A hackathon where people weren't just listening to talks or watching demonstrations.

They would actually build something.

And we wanted to bring the Cognition Devin Hackathon experience to Manila.

So we decided to make it happen.

With just 11 days to prepare.

Eleven days. That's all we had.

I don't think I've ever organized something of this scale on such short notice.

We had to coordinate sponsors, secure a venue, finalize mechanics, prepare judging criteria, recruit volunteers, handle registrations, arrange prizes, and communicate with hundreds of participants.

And because we're still a relatively small team, everyone had to take on multiple responsibilities.

There were plenty of rough edges.

Things changed constantly. We had to make decisions quickly, adjust our plans, and solve problems as they came.

But one thing I learned from building software applies surprisingly well to organizing events:

You don't need everything to be perfect before you start. You just need to start, iterate, and keep moving.

Within the first two days of announcing the hackathon, we had already crossed 1,000 registrations.

That's when we realized this was going to be much bigger than we initially expected.

24 hours to build something meaningful

The hackathon officially began on October 9.

Our theme was Local AI, challenging participants to explore what artificial intelligence could do when running locally or directly on devices.

We wanted builders to think beyond simply connecting an application to an AI API.

What could they create that was useful, practical, and capable of working without relying entirely on the cloud?

Participants had 24 hours to turn their ideas into working projects.

And they delivered.

By the submission deadline, we received 281 projects.

That's 281 teams or individuals who took an idea and spent their time actually building something.

As someone who has competed in hackathons myself, I know how much work goes into those 24 hours.

Behind every submission are hours of debugging, unexpected problems, last-minute fixes, and decisions about what features to prioritize.

Regardless of the results, I have a lot of respect for everyone who submitted a project.

Demo Day at SM Makati

On October 10, we held our in-person Demo Day at Cyberzone, SM Makati.

This was probably the part that surprised me the most.

More than 500 people showed up.

The venue was overflowing.

We had to coordinate additional space to accommodate the crowd.

Seeing hundreds of developers gathered in one place, all interested in building technology, was something I won't forget anytime soon.

I've attended plenty of developer events, both locally and internationally.

But standing there as an organizer rather than a participant felt completely different.

It was surreal to see something that existed only as an idea less than two weeks earlier become an actual event attended by hundreds of people.

Building is only half the challenge

One thing we wanted to emphasize was that hackathons aren't just about having a good idea.

They're about execution.

That's why we encouraged participants to focus on working demonstrations rather than lengthy presentations.

We also wanted our judges to look beyond the surface.

Technical implementation, code quality, functionality, and the ability to explain engineering decisions all mattered.

And because our theme was Local AI, finalists had to demonstrate how their solutions performed under offline conditions.

It's one thing to show a polished demo.

It's another to explain how it works, defend your technical decisions, and prove that the implementation actually does what you claim.

I think these are valuable skills for any developer, regardless of whether they're competing in a hackathon or building products professionally.

Bringing Cognition and Devin to Manila

One of the highlights of this event was the opportunity to bring Cognition and Devin into the Philippine developer community.

As someone who has spent years working with AI and developer tools, I've always wanted local builders to have more direct exposure to the technologies being developed globally.

Not just through online announcements or videos, but through actual opportunities to experiment with them.

Through this hackathon, participants had the opportunity to explore Devin and receive development credits.

For me, being able to help bring that experience to Manila was a privilege.

And I hope this is only the beginning of more collaborations that make these opportunities accessible to Filipino developers.

From competing to creating opportunities

A few years ago, I was the one joining hackathons.

I remember the excitement of registering, finding teammates, brainstorming ideas, and hoping we could finish something before the deadline.

Hackathons played a meaningful role in my development as an engineer.

They pushed me to learn technologies I wouldn't normally use, work with people I'd never met, and build under pressure.

Some of those experiences eventually led to opportunities I never expected.

Now, being on the other side of the event has given me a different perspective.

There's something fulfilling about helping create the same opportunities that once helped you grow.

And if even a handful of participants leave this hackathon motivated to keep building, improve their skills, or launch their projects, I think we've accomplished something meaningful.

None of this would have happened without the team

I may have started the idea, but there's absolutely no way I could have pulled this off alone.

To my teammates at AppBuilders PH, thank you.

You helped turn an ambitious idea into an actual event in just 11 days.

To our volunteers, thank you for giving your time and energy to help us manage an event much larger than we initially anticipated.

To our sponsors and partners, including Cognition, AMD, PC Express, ASUS Philippines, and Whitecloak, thank you for supporting the local developer community and helping make this possible.

And to everyone who registered, participated, submitted a project, attended Demo Day, or simply helped spread the word, thank you.

I also want to thank God for making all of this possible.

There were so many things that could have gone wrong, and plenty of challenges along the way. I'm grateful we were able to see it through.

What's next for AppBuilders PH?

When I started AppBuilders PH, I didn't imagine we'd be organizing something of this scale.

We went from community discussions to meetups, Show & Tell events, and now a hackathon with more than 1,200 participants.

And we're still figuring things out.

There are plenty of things we can improve, especially when it comes to logistics, communication, and managing events at this scale.

We'll take those lessons seriously.

But this experience has made me even more convinced of something I've believed for a long time:

The Philippines has incredible builders. They just need more opportunities to build.

I want AppBuilders PH to continue being a place where people can share what they're working on, learn from one another, find collaborators, and turn their ideas into real products.

Whether you're a student building your first application or an experienced engineer working on your next startup, there's room for you here.

And hopefully, we'll get to organize many more events like this.

Eleven days ago, this was just an idea.

Now, 281 projects exist because more than a thousand people decided to participate.

That's pretty cool.

Keep building.