Prophet Hacks is a 32-hour, in-person AI hackathon at the University of Chicago for builders who want to make agents that predict the future. Teams compete in one of two tracks — Forecasting or Trading — and ship agents that produce probabilistic predictions about real-world events or execute strategies on prediction markets.

 

Unlike a typical demo-day hackathon, your work is graded by a real evaluation harness over a 2-week post-event window — your agent runs against live questions on the Prophet Arena benchmark or against a live trading harness, and the leaderboard updates continuously. Sharp ideas only get you so far; you need an agent that performs.

What makes it special

•      Two distinct tracks. Forecasting rewards careful research and well-calibrated predictions. Trading rewards risk management, sizing, and execution. You can win either without dominating the other.

•      Real, post-event evaluation. Agents are scored continuously for two weeks after the build window. No subjective judging — your Brier score and your PnL speak for themselves.

•      Real prizes. Each track's winning team gets a sponsored trip to South Korea (up to $2,000) to present at the ICML workshop. Runner-up in each track receives $500.

•      Open to builders, not just students. Students, researchers, developers, startup teams, and independent builders welcome.

•      Hosted at UChicago. Built around John Crerar Library on the University of Chicago campus.

Event schedule

Saturday, May 16, 2026

•      9:00 AM — Doors open, kick-off

•      12:00 PM — Lunch

•      6:00 PM — Dinner

Sunday, May 17, 2026

•      12:30 PM — Lunch

•      5:00 PM — Submission deadline

After the event: agents run on Prophet Arena's evaluation harness for two weeks (May 17 → May 31). Winners announced Monday, June 1, 2026.

Requirements

Each team must submit the following by Sunday, May 17 at 5:00 PM CT. Late submissions are not accepted.

What to build

Build an AI agent for one (and only one) of these tracks:

•      Forecasting Track. An agent that takes a list of forecasting questions and returns calibrated probability predictions for real-world events (technology, economics, geopolitics, science, etc.).

•      Trading Track. An agent that takes positions on prediction markets and aims for positive PnL using the provided trading harness.

What to submit on Devpost

•      Devpost project page with all team members listed and a written project description: overview of the agent, architecture, key design decisions, and what's novel.

•      Public GitHub repository containing your code, a README, and a run script with clear instructions so the organizers can execute your agent in a standardized environment. We recommend releasing under MIT or Apache 2.0. Do NOT commit any API keys or secrets.

•      Agent deployment for evaluation.

For the Forecasting Track, your agent must expose an OpenAI-compatible HTTP endpoint the evaluation harness can query (10-minute response window per request batch). Please submit your agent endpoint on https://www.prophethacks.com/submit-endpoint
 
For the Trading Track, your agent must integrate with the ai-prophet SDK trading harness.
  1. prefix your run slug with eval_<team-name> (e.g. eval_thechuds).
  2. Set n_ticks=1500 when you create the experiment. That covers the window (1,344 ticks max) with a small buffer.
  3. Kick off your bot at 5:00 PM CDT on 5/17 or later. The server doesn't block pre-window claims, but we'll only score ticks and bots inside the window.
  4. It's fine if your bot keeps running past 5/31. We snapshot portfolios at the deadline.
  5. Starting portfolio: $10,000. The SDK defaults to this; if you're hitting the API directly, set starting_cash=10000 on upsert_participant.

After submission

Your agent will run during the 2-week evaluation window (May 17 → May 31) on your own API keys. Be mindful of API costs — model choice, token usage, and request volume add up quickly. Teams may withdraw their agents from evaluation at any time by emailing [email protected].

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$1,000+ in prizes
+ other prizes
sponsored trip to South Korea
2 winners

a sponsored trip to South Korea (value up to $2,000) to present at the ICML workshop

Runner-up award $500
$500 in cash
2 winners

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Simon Mahns

Simon Mahns

Haifeng Xu

Haifeng Xu

Judging Criteria

  • Performance Metrics

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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