Sword Hackathon 2025

> INITIATE: AI-first healthcare… human.limits overridden

We’re looking for excellent engineering talent with the creativity to solve real-world problems. You’re free to use any coding language or tools you prefer, and there’s no requirement to use AI. If you’re excited about working with LLMs or want to focus your project on AI, that’s great—but it’s entirely up to you. What matters most is your ability to build innovative, tangible solutions that demonstrate your skills.

We’re looking for talented individuals of all backgrounds (back-end, front-end, ML). Anyone with coding skills—regardless of the programming language—is welcome. Any amount of experience is accepted. Teams of 1 to 3 people max. Candidates must be based in Portugal and over 18 years of age.

The project should showcase creativity and include meaningful developments introduced during the challenge period. You’re welcome to build on existing projects or use open-source code, as long as your original contributions stand out. Whether you use LLMs, other AI tools, or no AI at all, what matters most is how you solve the problem and bring your ideas to life.

On April 2nd, 2025, teams submit a two-pager outlining their solution and a short video demo uploaded on YouTube (<4 minutes). A jury of Sword employees reviews the submissions and selects the top 6 to do the final pitch. The teams can continue refining their concepts even after submitting the initial demo and two-pager.

On April 12, the finalist teams will present their work through an exciting pitch and live demo, with each team having a 7-minute slot to showcase their project, followed by 5 minutes of feedback from Sword’s AI and engineering team.

Solutions will be assessed based on four key criteria, each with specific weightings: Problem (20%): The idea addresses a significant issue with substantial impact, identifying gaps in existing solutions or shortcomings in current approaches. Solution (35%): The project demonstrates creativity, originality, and innovative problem-solving. Technical Approach (35%): The architectural choices ensure reliability, appropriate technical sophistication, and real-world feasibility. Communication (10%): The project effectively conveys the problem, solution, and underlying technical framework across all deliverables.

At Sword, we value autonomy and independent thinking. That’s why we won’t assign individual mentors. Instead, we’ll host one 60-minute office hour where teams can drop in, ask questions, and get feedback. These sessions are open to all teams, not one-on-one.

As an official partner of this event, Replit is offering all participants free access to its AI Agent for four weeks to enhance the coding experience and provide a unique opportunity to work with cutting-edge AI tools. We will send a follow-up email with all the details on how to redeem the offer.

Take some inspiration of the challenges we’re currently tackling at Sword: How can we simplify connecting to tools with limited or inconsistent APIs? How can we build a framework where AI agents communicate and work together to complete tasks? How can we pull data from multiple sources–even when formats are inconsistent or messy? How can we design an experimentation engine that lets teams test, measure and iterate on AI messages quickly? How can we create a system to trigger and manage large-scale tasks efficiently?

The final will take place on April 12th, 2025, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm. Our office is located at Avenida Sidónio Pais 153, Edifício A, Piso 5, 4100-467 Porto.

Sword will cover travel expenses for teams chosen to be our office in Porto live for the final pitch.

Not a problem! We’d love to have you join us in person but we understand if you’re not able, we’re happy to accept fully remote participation, even for the final pitch.

That’s completely up to you! We announced the challenge well in advance so you can fit it around your personal life. The only commitment we ask for is that, if you’re selected for the final presentation, you dedicate the entire day to participate—whether remotely or in person.

Sword Health shall have the right to implement similar approaches and otherwise use any feedback, suggestions or ideas related to Sword Heath's business or product for any purpose, without attribution or compensation.

Right here.