Zubr Capital Young Hackathon 2026

Idea to prototype to investor pitch, in one day, for nothing. The Zubr Capital Young Hackathon returns to Cyprus on Saturday 24 October 2026, and this edition is given over entirely to AI products. Last year's debut was a general startup sprint; this one narrows the brief to building something AI-powered, validating it, and pitching it to investors before the room empties. Who it is for. University students in Cyprus and early-stage founders. You do not need a team or an idea to apply — the format is built around assembling teams on site and starting from a hypothesis. Entry is free, registration is required, through league.zubrcapital.com/hackathon-cyprus. What actually happens in the day. The series compresses the first months of a startup into a single sitting: identify a problem worth solving with AI, test the hypothesis, build a working prototype, work out where the solution breaks, and present it to investors. The organiser's own framing of the skill being taught is blunt — which problems are worth solving with AI, how to test hypotheses, how to assess the solution's limitations. Mentoring comes from Zubr Capital's own investment side; the 2025 Cyprus edition put Oleg Khusaenov (founder and CEO), Nikita Krivelevich (investment director), Anna Khechoyan (investment manager) and several Zubr partners in the room as mentors and judges. The precedent, which is the best guide to what to expect. The first Cyprus edition ran on 23 October 2025 at the Parklane resort in Limassol, 11:00–21:00, with Russian as the working language, limited places, registration closing four days ahead and a short interview before acceptance. The series then ran an AI edition in Almaty on 19 September 2026 that drew 130 students and 16 startup teams in a single day. Warsaw has also hosted one. What is not yet published, and worth checking before you plan around it. The venue for 24 October, the running times (the 11:00–21:00 above is the 2025 schedule, not a confirmed 2026 one), the working language for this edition, the prize structure and any registration cut-off. Given 2025 closed applications four days early and screened by interview, treat the deadline as earlier than the event date rather than the day before. Why it is worth a Saturday. This is the only free, one-day, investor-facing AI build in Cyprus this month, and it lands five weeks before the BoC Fintech Hackathon 7.0 (27–29 November, IDEA Innovation Centre, €16,000 in prizes) — which is long enough to turn a 24 October prototype into a November entry. The backdrop is not subtle either: 43% of Cyprus CEOs named skills shortages a major threat to their business in 2026, and Zubr's pitch is explicitly that the gap is in judgement about AI rather than access to it. Register early; places on the 2025 edition were capped and interviewed.

Event website