NYC Build With AI Hackathon | Google Cloud Labs x Columbia Business School - II

Day 2:

March 8th 2026 | All Day AI Hackathon 

Location: Columbia University | Columbia Business School | 665 130th Street - David Geffen Hall Date & Time: Sunday, March 8 | 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM | Geffen Hall 620

🗓️ Hackathon Event Schedule

The main event is here. Since environment setup was completed during the previous evening's labs, we are hitting the ground running with a day dedicated to pure building and innovation.

9:30 AM: 🚪 Doors Open

9:45 AM – 10:15 AM: 🎤 Opening Remarks & Gemini Live Demo

Kick off with a physical device demo using Gemini Live to inspire the builds.

10:15 AM: 💻 Start Hacking!

Attendees start coding immediately since Labs were completed the night before.

1:00 PM: 🥗 Working Lunch

Food served; hacking continues to keep the momentum.

2:30 PM: 📤 Project Submission Deadline

Final push to get code into the portal.

3:00 PM: 👩‍💻 Judging & Presentations

Live demos and finalists present to the panel.

4:30 PM: 🏆 Awards Ceremony

5:00 PM: 🏁 Event Wrap-up
Step out of the traditional "text box" paradigm and build AI that truly connects. This hackathon challenges you to create immersive, multimodal AI agents using Google Cloud and Gemini.

Participants will leverage the speed of the Gemini Live API and the power of Google’s GenAI SDK/ Agent Development Kit  to build solutions in one of two categories:

The Live Agent: Build real-time, voice-and-vision enabled agents that can converse naturally and handle interruptions (e.g., real-time translators, vision-enabled tutors).

The Creative Storyteller: Build agents that generate rich, interleaved outputs—seamlessly mixing text, audio, and visuals into a cohesive narrative flow.

The Mission: Don’t just build a chatbot. Build an experience that sees, hears, speaks, and creates.Prizes: $30,000 in Google Cloud Credits
Up to 4 tickets to Google I/O - 2026 - the ultimate annual showcase of AI breakthroughs and invite-only event on May 19-20 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA.$500 Personal shopping experience at the Google's St. John's Terminal store - not open to the public 
Swag - Google x Columbia Business School limited edition t-shirts
More to come!

RSVP Day 1: March 7th 2026 | Evening Kick Off Event | 7 PM - 9PM ET Cooperman CommonsJoin the Slack

Agenda

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Speakers

Christina Lin - Google (Developer Relations Engineering Manager - Americas)

Christina Lin is a Developer Relations Engineering Manager at Google, leading advocacy and community programs across the Americas. With over two decades of experience spanning Google, Redpanda Data, and Red Hat, Christina has built a career at the intersection of developer relations, open source, and enterprise architecture. Recognized for driving technical ed…

Qingyue(Annie) Wang - Google (Software Engineer | Internal Career Coach)

Hey, I'm Qingyue(Annie) Wang, a software engineer with over five years of industry experience, including roles at Amazon and Google. As an internal career coach for the past year, I've trained new hires, fostering leadership and career progression. Soon, I'll be ICF certified coach with over 50 coaching hours.
My passion lies in the human side of tech, offering mentorship and support to …

Ayo Adedeji - Google (Developer Relations Engineer)

Ayo Adedeji is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer on Google Cloud's AI/ML team, specializing in agents and generative AI. With a background in computational biology (Stanford, Johns Hopkins) and experience as an ML Engineer in healthcare, he focuses on helping developers build AI systems that solve real-world problems.

Olivier Bourgeois - Google (Developer Relations)

Currently on the Google Cloud DevRel team, for Kubernetes (GKE). I specialize in cloud, back-end development, automation, and developer experience.

Roman Jaquez - Philips (Software Engineer / Flutter GDE)

Roman Jaquez is a Google Developer Expert in Flutter / Dart, as well as a Google Certified Cloud Architect who loves sharing his passion for Flutter with the wider developer community. He is also lead organizer at GDG Lawrence, as well as a GDG Mentor for the Northeast in the USA, with 10+ years of experience as a software engineer, currently in the medical field. He enjoys spreading the word …

Allen Firstenberg - Google Developer Expert ML, Google Workspace & Google Assistant

By day, Allen is a Senior Project Engineer at http://spiders.com/; where he’s been instrumental in creating websites and mobile apps for companies and organizations, ranging from the American Booksellers Association to the National Science Foundation. By night he creates tools, software, and tutorials to help people share their stories and improve …

Roya Kandalan - Google Developer Expert (Generative AI Research Scientist)

Roya is a research scientist working on advancing artificial intelligence technologies. She has a PhD in Electrical Engineering, is a US patent holder, and has multiple publications in primary journals on electrical engineering, mathematics, and artificial intelligence. Her primary research interests are generative AI, computer vision, and pattern recognition. Roya has developed machine learni…

Host

Amin Ameen - Columbia Business School (Executive MBA Candidate | AI Club Board Member)

Amin Ameen is an engineer-turned product marketing and product strategy leader whose career spans engineering, fintech, creator monetization, subscriptions, and growth across startups and global platforms, including Twitter, Twitch, and Meta.
She began her career in engineering, progressing from Engineer to Senior Engineer to Engineering Manager in the Energy Industry before movi…

Judges

Cameron Willard - LS Power (Director)

Cameron builds new power generation to serve demand from AI. In his current role he oversees investment analysis and project offtake in the generation development group at LS Power, one of the leading investors in the power sector. Prior to his current role he oversaw finance at LS Power portfolio company Rise Light & Power, which was sold to NRG as part of a $13 billion transaction. Befor…

Wendy Durica - Kantar (Lead Engineer)

Wendy works at Kantar as Release Manager/Escalation Lead and an Accessibility Frontline Worker. She is a speaker and mentor who enjoys networking with those who are passionate about User Experience (UX) and Universal Design. Wendy is a past member with Grace Hopper Celebration Software Executive Committee, past officer with Society Women Engineers (SWE)
She also co-founded Women in…

Lawrence Wang - Butter Data (CEO)

Lawrence Wang is the Founder and CEO of Butter Data, a platform that leverages Generative AI to automate data science insights for product and marketing teams. Based in New York, he is a seasoned entrepreneur and technical leader with a track record of building 0-to-1 consumer and seller experiences.
Prior to founding Butter Data, Lawrence served as a Data Scient…

Tanmay Nautiyal - Columbia Business School | Carromm AI (MBA + MS Candidate | Founder)

I turn complex technology into products people will pay for.
Started in software and financial systems, where precision and scale mattered. Moved into developing product across robotics and AI, then into building and selling them as an entrepreneur.
Experience spans taking products from conception to launch and scale across the three largest economies (GDP-PPP) in the world: Ind…

Siddhant Patra - Columbia Business School (MBA Candidate)

Pricing consultant with 5+ years at Bain & Company. I leveraged data-driven insights to empower sales reps in improving revenues at 20+ companies with avg. 250-400 bps.
Beyond consulting, I co-founded several digital solutions helping businesses optimize pricing. As a Founder's Studio member at Bain, I conceptualized an engine 2 AI-business and organized 3 editions of our global hac…

Obed Appiah-Agyeman - Google (Software Engineer)

I will be a difference maker.

Nandini Srivastava - Columbia Business School (MBA Candidate | Forté Fellow)

Product + GTM operator, building AI-powered experiences
I turn customer pain into clear product bets, crisp positioning, and measurable growth.

Reginé Gilbert - NYU Tandon | Gilbert Consulting Group, Inc. (Industry Associate Professor | Founder & Global Design Strategist)

Reginé Gilbert is a change strategist, speaker, and author whose work focuses on human judgment, systems thinking, and the design of AI-augmented organizations.She is the creator of Access Blueprint™, a systems-based approach that helps organizations navigate complexity across technology, policy, and human behavior. Her work brings structure, clarity, and accountability to digital and organiza…

Anand vardhan Singh - MatchaHire (CEO, Co-Founder)

Anand Vardhan Singh is a 2x founder and product leader with 6 years of experience building and scaling technology ventures across climate tech, mobility, and SaaS in international markets. He operates at the intersection of AI, infrastructure, and product strategy, leading cross functional teams to translate complex systems into scalable, durable products.
Most recently, Anand has focuse…

Divya Krishnamurthi - Executive MBA Candidate | Wharton (Sr. Manager | Akamai Technologies)

Divya works as a Senior Manager at Akamai Technologies. She is passionate about Technology and enjoys attending Tech Events. She was a Speaker at AWS community Day in Bangalore, India last year where she presented on Building a Conversational AI Assistant with AWS Lambda and Google Home. Divya attended the Google Next 2019 in San Francisco and was among the 100 people worldwide to win the Google …

Sienna Cheng - TikTok (Creative Ads Product Manager)

I am a product lead specializing in ML/AI, with 10 years experience in deep learning, LLM training & deployment, and real-world applications. My expertise lies in social media and content platforms, where I focus on building AI-driven solutions for recommendation systems that drive revenue and enhance user experiences in large-scale data scenarios.
I excel in cross-functional collab…

Shreyata Sharma - Columbia Business School (MBA Candidate)

Currently, I am an MBA candidate at Columbia Business School. An experienced Sales professional with over 7 years of experience, I have driven strategic initiatives across Business Development, Sales, Marketing, and Account Management. My main objective is to contribute to the growth of an organization with professional expertise in Business Development and Entrepreneurial skills and develop m…

Complete your event RSVP here: https://gdg.community.dev/events/details/google-gdg-nyc-presents-nyc-build-with-ai-hackathon-google-cloud-labs-x-columbia-business-school-ii-1/.