{"slug":"soon-hackathon","name":"SOON","edition":"past edition (undated)","year":2026,"organizer":"SOON (founded by a repeat hackathon winner/organizer; UofT-affiliated contact)","kind":"invite-residential","format":"residential","region":"North America","countries":["CA"],"city":"Greater Toronto Area","venue":"Private house (address shared with accepted hackers)","start_date":null,"end_date":null,"duration_hours":48,"participants":50,"teams":17,"team_size":null,"theme":null,"tracks":[],"prizes":[],"judging":{"criteria":[],"judge_profile_summary":"Past judges/speakers skew to founders with exits, a YC solo founder, and big-tech engineers/DevRel.","judges":[{"name":"Barry Hillier","org":"Auto Agentic AI","role":"Founder (7 exits)"},{"name":"Robert Ciborowski","org":"Chatforce","role":"CEO (prev. Meta)"},{"name":"Nikos Dritsakos","org":"YC S26","role":"Solo founder (1 exit, prev. Composio)"},{"name":"Arhum Shahzad","org":"Google","role":"SWE (prev. Amazon)"},{"name":"Jen Looper","org":"Cloudinary","role":"Director of Developer Relations"},{"name":"Ryan Ning","org":"Uber","role":"SWE"}],"notes":"Listed as 'past judges and speakers'; not all may have judged."},"required_tech":[],"sponsors":["Althra","Composio","CyStack","Polar","Polarity","Cloudinary","backboard.io","Chatforce","aucctus"],"submission_requirements":[],"results_status":"featured-only","roster_coverage":"partial","entries":[{"name":"Memento","tagline":"AI visual-memory system turning everyday video into searchable, explorable 3D memories.","placement":{"status":"featured"},"domains":["memory-journaling","creative-media"],"team_size":4},{"name":"SAMM","tagline":"AI innovation platform compressing weeks of product work into an afternoon: idea to brand-aligned concept with strategy, visuals, 3D renders and video.","placement":{"status":"featured"},"domains":["marketing-growth","creative-media"],"team_size":4},{"name":"Oyster","tagline":"Sketches to 3D assets for Godot, plus an agent that edits your game codebase with hot reload.","placement":{"status":"featured"},"domains":["games-entertainment","dev-tools"],"team_size":4},{"name":"Auctopus","tagline":"Product idea to interactive prototype: brand research, 3D models, video and AI persona simulations.","placement":{"status":"featured"},"domains":["marketing-growth","simulation-forecasting"],"team_size":4},{"name":"Lootboard","tagline":"AI marketplace for native in-game sponsorships that match brands to games and generate placements developers approve.","placement":{"status":"featured"},"domains":["marketing-growth","games-entertainment"],"team_size":2}],"organizer_takeaways":[{"claim":"Outcomes claimed: 25% of hackers founded a startup, 4 hiring positions, 2 projects integrated into sponsors' systems, 30+ referrals, 300k social impressions.","source":0}],"sources":[{"url":"https://www.soonhackathon.ca/","kind":"official-event-page","retrieved_at":"2026-09-14"}],"curator_notes":"Year set to 2026 based on the founder's '2026' activity statement; exact dates unknown. Two of five featured projects (SAMM, Auctopus) pitch nearly the same idea-to-concept pipeline — a sponsor-fit signal (brand/3D/video generation sponsors) rather than originality."}