The challenge

Pick a real problem, identify a real user, and build toward it with whatever tools fit.

Four partners are sponsoring category prizes, and qualifying for one requires the platform to play a genuine role in your project:

• Expo: If your project is a mobile app, build it with Expo's React Native tooling. Use the SDK, ship with Build or Update, whichever fits your project. The platform should be doing real work in your stack.
• Clerk: If your app requires authentication, user profiles, or session management, use Clerk rather than building this from scratch. Sign-up, sign-in, multi-factor authentication, and social login all qualify.
• Eon: If you're building an AI agent, use Era by Eon to test and benchmark it. Every team gets free early access at kickoff.
• SurrealDB: If your agent needs memory, use SurrealDB Agent Memory. 

None of these are mandatory, and Best Overall is open to any project regardless of stack. If you're submitting for Best Use of Expo, Clerk, Eon, or SurrealDB Agent Memory specifically, judges will look for evidence that the platform materially shaped what you built.

What to build

Build an app, an agent, a browser extension, a hardware project, or something else entirely, provided it addresses the problem you've chosen.

Before committing to an idea, it's worth clarifying three things:

• Who is the user, specifically? Not "everyone who does X." A single person, team, or workflow you can point to.
• What is the value-add, stated plainly? You should be able to say what's better because your project exists.
• Is there a credible path to production? A business plan isn't required. Judges should be able to look at the project and believe it could continue to exist after Demo Day.

What to submit

Everything is submitted through a single Devpost project page, due October 25 at 11:59 PM ET. Your page should include:

• A public GitHub repository. Your code, visible to judges and anyone else who wants to look.
• A live link (if applicable). A deployed app, App Store listing, or test build. If your project can be run or accessed outside your own machine, link it here.
• A demo video (optional). Four minutes or less, shareable link, no login required. Show what you built, how it works, and the key technology behind it.
• A project write-up. Cover what you built and why, your tech stack, and which partner platforms you used and how (relevant if you're submitting for a category prize).
• Your team. List every team member by name, up to four.
• Disclosure of prior work. If you started from any templates or scaffolding, or any part of your project existed before Build Week, say so and explain what was built or changed during the week itself.

The top 10 teams are announced on October 26 and demo live at Demo Day in Toronto on October 29. At least one person on your team needs to be able to attend in person.