2026 Edition · Data Storytelling Hackathon

Find the human story hiding in the model.

Futureproof Festival, BC + AI, and Rival Technologies are bringing the hackathon back.

This year's working territory is synthetic audiences, real people, and the evidence between them. The exact challenge, prizes, and timing are being shaped now.

Get the brief when it dropsSee the working format
Edition
2026
Working territory
Synthetic audiences
Proposed format
Brief → build → live demo
Still to decide
Timing, prizes, and rules
The collaboration

A Futureproof Festival challenge, presented by BC + AI and built with Rival Technologies.

Presented by

Hackathon collaborator

Rival Technologies, a Rival Group company
A previous Data Storytelling Hackathon team presenting its work onstage in Vancouver

Built here before

4 previous rounds in Vancouver.

Working problem space

Synthetic audiences. Real consequences.

The opportunity is not to make simulated people look convincing. It is to make the relationship between modelled responses and human evidence visible enough to question.

01

When a synthetic audience predicts a reaction, what evidence should the storyteller show?

02

Where does a simulated voice reveal a pattern—and where does it flatten the people behind it?

03

Can a team make uncertainty visible enough for a non-research audience to use?

The final challenge brief is not locked yet. That is what the next conversation is for.

The recommended shape

Build before. Demo together.

This is a proposal, not a published schedule. It protects the festival experience while giving teams enough time to make work worth putting onstage.

01The brief

Start with a question worth answering.

Rival and BC + AI shape the problem space, source material, rules, and judging lens.

02The build

Give the story enough room.

Teams get time before the festival to test the method, challenge assumptions, and make the result legible.

03The room

Bring the strongest work onstage.

Finalists demo inside Futureproof, where the jury and festival audience become the last part of the experiment.

From the room

The data leaves the slide. The story meets people.

Previous Vancouver Data Storytelling Hackathons, photographed as they happened: presenting, questioning, celebrating, and putting the work in front of a real room.

Vancouver AI Data Storytelling Hackathon stage with speakers and a Rival-sponsored winner cheque projected behind them.
The room remembers.September 2025
Matt Sinclair-Foreman and organizers hold a 2,500 dollar Rival-sponsored hackathon cheque in front of a cheering Vancouver AI audience.
One winner. A hundred hands up.June 2025
Hackathon finalists gathered on stage beneath a Data Storytelling Hackathon projection.
Round three, all finalists.Finalists
Two hackathon presenters stand on stage beside a live interface projected behind them.
The prototype goes on the big screen.Live demo
Hackathon winner Dean Shev presents his data storytelling project on the Vancouver AI stage.
Dean Shev makes the case.Builder
Dean Shev joins an on-stage discussion beside imagery from his data storytelling project.
The story gets questioned.Onstage
Dean Shev and the Round 3 hackathon team hold a 2,500 dollar winner cheque on stage.
Rival puts a real prize behind the work.Round 3 winner
Audience members watch a hackathon presentation from the front row.
The audience is part of the test.Front row
Builders and community members cluster around a laptop during a hands-on demo huddle.
The demo keeps going in the hallway.Builder huddle
Three young AI builders pose together outdoors at the Vancouver AI gathering.
The next generation is already here.Community
Documentary photography, not generated imagery.Photos: Michelle Diamond · Vancouver AI · 2025
Get the brief

Put your name on the brief.

Join the Hackathon 2026 list. We'll send a quick confirmation now, then the format, challenge, prizes, and registration details as Rival and the Futureproof crew lock them.

No application essay. No fake certainty. Just a signal that you want to build.