Moonshot Hackathon

The challenge

Moonshot is a hackathon for original thought, grounded in the zero-to-one philosophy. Participants are asked to invent new categories, capabilities, and futures, aiming to transform civilizations with ideas that sound unrealistic and technologies that should not exist yet. The goal is to prototype the future, rewarding depth over polish, vision over trend-following, and originality over imitation.

Required tech & constraints

• Ages 13+ only
• Students only
• Companies/professional organizations excluded from participation
• All countries/territories, excluding standard exceptions

Submission requirements

• A Prototype, Model, or Demonstration: This can be in the form of code, simulations, hardware, mathematical models, technical visualizations, or experimental systems. Perfection is not expected; originality is.
• A Moonshot Paper: Explain the philosophy, reasoning, and architecture behind your idea, covering the problem misunderstood, insufficiency of existing solutions, first-principles insight, scientific/technical foundations, long-term implications, and the future the project creates.
• A Vision Presentation: Present what was built and why it matters, focusing on clarity of thought, depth of reasoning, technical ambition, and the courage to pursue impossible ideas.

Judging criteria

• Originality & Zero-to-One Thinking - 35%: First-principles thinking, contrarian insights, unconventional approaches, and creation of new categories.
• Technical & Scientific Depth - 25%: Engineering complexity, scientific reasoning, mathematical/computational depth, research quality, and sophistication of implementation.
• Long-Term Vision & Impact - 20%: Potential to influence technology, science, society, infrastructure, healthcare, education, economics, or civilization.
• Feasibility & Execution Path - 10%: Clarity of reasoning, practicality of implementation, scalability, and a believable route from concept to impact.
• Prototype & Demonstration - 10%: Working software, simulations, hardware systems, experimental models, technical demonstrations, or proof-of-concept implementations.

Prizes

• 1st Grand Award - The Moonshot Award: $1,024 cash + CodeCrafters 2-Year VIP Membership, CleanShot X License, Iteration Machine Growth Plan Access.
• 2nd Grand Award - Frontier Technology Award: $676 cash + CodeCrafters 1-Year VIP Membership, CleanShot X License, Iteration Machine Growth Plan Access.
• 3rd Grand Award - First-Principles Innovation Award: $502 cash + CodeCrafters 6-Month VIP Membership, CleanShot X License, Iteration Machine Growth Plan Access.
• 4th Grand Award - Civilization Impact Award: $415 cash + CodeCrafters 3-Month VIP Membership, CleanShot X License, Iteration Machine Growth Plan Access.
• 5th Grand Award - Builder’s Award: $415 cash + CodeCrafters 3-Month VIP Membership, CleanShot X License, Iteration Machine Growth Plan Access.
• Top 100 Finalist Award: $299 cash (100 winners) + Iteration Machine Growth Plan Access.
• MongoDB Atlas Awards (2 Winners): $300 cash total ($150 each) + $150 MongoDB Atlas Voucher per winning project.