ALI AMJAD

figuring out.. if you have figured out. Let’s chat

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@MongoDB @zubairzafar It was vvv fun !!!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

Day 168 - “We don’t share prize money if you join our team.” 😂🏆

Someone actually told @zubairzafar this at the last MongoDB Fest hackathon.

Well, this time, Zubair Zafar and I teamed up and won **1st place + the Sponsor Track!** $10,000 🏆

At the last hackathon, I spent most of my time collecting all the free swag. 😂 By the time I was done, I couldn’t even get into the main area where the presentations were happening. So yeah, Zubair and I definitely took an L that day.

This time, we decided to do things differently.

We showed up on time, researched the problem we wanted to solve, picked an idea, and spent pretty much every minute building. No distractions (okay, maybe a little swag 👀).

Zubair and I have known each other for a few months and have worked on several hackathons together, but there was always someone else on the team. This was our first time building something with just the two of us.

It took us a while to finally do a project as a duo, but honestly, it was a lot of fun.

Huge thanks to the judges and sponsors for making this such an awesome experience:

🙌 Steffan Mejia – @MongoDB
🙌 @JacksonFerrigno – @raindrop_ai
🙌 Bosco Albuquerque – @awscloud
🙌 @artahian – @modelence
🙌 @PatrickSteyn – @MongoDB
🙌 @cerebral_valley

And thanks to all the organizers and everyone who made the hackathon possible!

**Lesson learned: Less swag, more shipping. 😂🚀**

#Hackathon #MongoDB #AI #BuildInPublic

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@feiyou_guo @vytalow Thank you !!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

Day 156 — Won 3rd Place at Corgi, but the Highlight Was Meeting Sean Cole !

For the last 4 months I’ve been exploring biological computing seriously.

Zubair Zafar and I competed in the Make an Agent hackathon and took 3rd place.

Biggest highlight: meeting Sean Cole (@vytalow / @ParasmaAI). His living neurons playing DOOM went viral and I never expected to run into him as a judge.

Biological computing is still so early — that’s why I moved to SF to go all in. Also grateful for the R42 Group fellowship with @RonjonNag as mentor.

Huge thanks to the organizers: @an_engineer_log (@Agent37HQ) @hanghuang_ @tonychang430 (@insforge) @feiyou_guo @shengkunye (@MonidHQ)

Judges: @gupta_m0hit @SarmanAulakh @vytalow

Sponsors: @Agent37HQ @MonidHQ @OpenAI @insforge and the rest.

Back to building in biological computing. Stay tuned 🧠

[Nemil Dalal @nemild]

Epic energy as we kickoff the Make Something Agents Want hackathon at Y Combinator #makesomethingagentswant

[Kaushik Sivakumar @KaushikSiv38529]

I built SFVR, a WebXR shooting game for Samsung Galaxy XR with hand tracking and pinch-to-fire controls. It runs directly in Chrome on Snapdragon hardware.

Demo below 👇
@hackerstudio @Qualcomm_Dev

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@KaushikSiv38529 @HACKERSTUDIO @Qualcomm_Dev Thats super cool

[Raindrop @raindrop_ai]

Congrats to the winners of the #SFTechWeek Harness Engineering & Model Wrangling Hackathon.

Truly impressive work across the board, and especially from team MongoMation's @AliAmjad52114 and Zubair Zafar, who instrumented their agent with Raindrop to build a self-improvement loop. Shoutout to runners-up @jvboid and James Bian.

Thanks to @cerebral_valley and @MongoDB for hosting, and Raindrop's very own @JacksonFerrigno for judging.

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@samshanmukh @EmergencesLabs @Tiny_Fish So jealous of the trophy !!!!!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@samshanmukh world is a weird place ---maybe something better soon !!!!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@esthor @samshanmukh @samshanmukh have u?

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

Day 151 — Won $10,000 Solo in San Francisco in 5 hours.

I went to the Neon Postgres Hackathon for breakfast. 😂

Hackathons have become a weird kind of stress reliever for me.

I have so much going on with my startup right now. Sometimes I just want to go to a hackathon, completely immerse myself in building something, forget everything else for a few hours, and come back feeling better.

This time, I had absolutely no agenda.
I didn't even know if I was going to compete.

Had breakfast. Started thinking through a few ideas.
The theme was **Personal Agents**.

And then an idea clicked.

**Do-It-Once.**
What if you could show your computer how to do something once, and your coding agent could repeat that entire workflow for you next time?

Not just remember the steps.
Actually do the work.

With LLMs getting better every day, this suddenly feels possible.

I built a prototype in around **5 hours**, competing solo.
And somehow, I walked away with $10,000 worth of credits from @coderabbitai 🎉

But the most exciting part wasn't the prize. It's the keyboard that is not available on the market, just for some people. I'm glad to receive one !!!!

There will be a video soon about the keyboard - @samshanmukh is on it !!

Thank you to all the judges and organizers !!

@nikitabase @scottcjohnston @abhiaiyer @jeffzwang @juecd__ @RhysSullivan @simonfarshid @haakamaujla @esthor @jakubkrehel @jamdac

@databricks @flydotio @mastra @ExaAILabs @usekernel @executorsh @assistantui (YC W25) @agentmail (YC S25) @coderabbitai @interfere_ @a16z

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@samshanmukh letzzz goooooo !!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@andrelandgraf Thank you for an awesome event!!

Love to see more !!!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@esthor thank u for this super cool prize. VVV excited to show some cool projects soon. @samshanmukh

here is the repo if someone would like to try :

https://t.co/DVYxGkq0R9

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

it's all open source - give a try

https://t.co/DVYxGkq0R9

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@Joshua_WD thank you !! appreciate it !!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@esthor It was vvv much fun.... 10k credits is one side but this keyboard is SUPER COOOL.

@samshanmukh and me working on a very cool project, will share the video soon !!!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

@LauraLoumd Just followed, let's stay in touch !!

[ALI AMJAD @AliAmjad52114]

Day 149 — Lost the @ycombinator hackathon, but truly enjoyed at @supabase Select 2026.

Incredible time at the conference + hackathon. Huge thanks to @dshukertjr for making it possible.

The speaker lineup was unreal. Sitting near the front for @stevewoz was surreal , pure energy. He could’ve easily gone 5 hours. Spoke ~30 min, then stayed outside signing and taking photos. Got his signature on a Supabase $100 credit card 😄

Didn’t expect to meet @snowmaker either. His tarpit ideas video stuck with me. Told him about biological computing and why I was there (insights for the next hackathon).

Hackathons have been how I’ve fueled the startup journey - projects, teammates, confidence, small wins, painful losses, and proof to keep going.

Then @daltonc and @mwseibel on stage. My entrepreneurship journey honestly started with Michael’s “How to Start a Startup” (10 min) video. I still go back to it whenever I overthink.

As for the hackathon: I overthought the theme. They ran an amazing one.

Sometimes you win the prize.
Sometimes you win the room.
Sometimes the room itself was the prize.

One of the BEST events. Thank you @supabase, @AntWilson, @kiwicopple and everyone involved. 🔥