If you lead a development team, you already know the pattern. You approve the travel, your developers attend a great conference, they come back energized, and then the work resumes exactly as it was. The ideas don’t survive contact with the backlog.
This July at VSLive! @ Microsoft HQ in Redmond, we’re trying to change that pattern.
We’re adding the VSLive! Microsoft AI Hackathon 2026, a focused, hands-on build event that runs alongside the conference. Your developers learn during the day, then build at night, on the Microsoft campus, with Microsoft engineers and MVPs in the room. They leave with working code, not just notes.
Why this matters for dev leads
Most of your team is being asked to ship AI features into production right now. Most of them have not had uninterrupted time to actually build with Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, GitHub Copilot, or agent-based patterns under realistic constraints. Sprint work doesn’t allow it. Brown-bag sessions don’t go deep enough. Internal POCs get deprioritized.
This is structured time, with expert mentors, focused on the exact stack your team already runs on.
If you send two or three developers together, you get a small working group that returns with shared context, a real artifact, and the start of a pattern your team can extend. That’s a much better outcome than three separate sets of session notes.
Learn during the day. Build at night.
VSLive! @ Microsoft HQ runs on the Microsoft campus, which means your team is spending the week alongside the engineers, product managers, and MVPs who build and ship these tools.
Days cover Visual Studio, C#, .NET, Azure, Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, GitHub Copilot, agent-based development, and modern application patterns.
Evenings shift to the VSLive! Microsoft AI Hackathon, where the focus is building. Your developers take what they saw in sessions and apply it the same day, while it’s still fresh, with mentors on hand to unblock them.
They’ll work through the decisions that matter in production: architecture, security, user experience, and whether a pattern is actually viable for the kind of software your team supports.
The judging criteria reflect real engineering
Projects are evaluated on:
- Architecture and design
- Security and safety
- Relevance to real business problems
- User experience and execution
- Practical use of Microsoft AI technologies
This is the right bar. AI is moving fast, but enterprise teams still have to ship software that is secure, maintainable, and defensible in a code review. The criteria reward the kind of thinking you want your developers practicing.
What your team can build
The goal is something a developer can demo, explain, defend, and improve. Not the flashiest demo, the most useful one.
That could be a C# application, a .NET service, an internal developer tool, an agent-based workflow, a line-of-business app, or a creative project applying AI to content or interactive scenarios.
Participants declare a primary category, with the option to add a secondary:
- Microsoft .NET Powered Business Applications
- Best AI Agent or Workflow Automation
- Best Azure OpenAI / LLM-Powered App
- Best GitHub Copilot Integration
- Creative Applications
Participants retain full ownership and rights to their project IP. What your team builds belongs to them, and to you.
Who this fits
This is a fit for C# and .NET developers building business apps, web apps, desktop apps, cloud services, backend systems, and internal tools. It’s also a fit for developers exploring how AI fits inside the software they already build, whether that’s adding intelligence to an existing application, building an agent workflow, or improving a developer tool.
It’s approachable for developers new to hackathons and substantive enough for senior developers, architects, and dev leads who want practical patterns to bring back.
Your team can compete solo or as a team of up to four. Developers attending alone can form teams onsite.
Event details
Location:
Microsoft Commons Mixer, Building 98
Microsoft Headquarters, Redmond, WA
Schedule:
- Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM
- Kickoff, team formation, idea pitches, planning, first coding sprint.
- Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM
- Build time, mentor check-ins, final submissions, demo video submissions.
- Thursday, July 30, 2026, 11:00 AM to 11:30 AM
- Awards and select demos before the Thursday keynote.
Confirmed judges and proctors include Brian Randell, Phil Japikse, Eric Boyd, Allen Conway, and Microsoft representatives.
Prizes
Awards total up to $25,000, with a $6,000 Hackathon Grand Champion prize and additional team, solo, and category awards. Each project or team may win one monetary prize. Additional sponsored awards may be announced closer to the event.
A few logistics worth knowing
This is in-person only. There is no virtual option. Participation is capped, and once it’s full, it’s full.
If your developers are attending VSLive! @ Microsoft HQ, they can add hackathon participation during registration. There’s also a hackathon-only option for community attendees who aren’t doing the full conference.
If you’re local to Redmond, come spend an evening with us
If you’re in the Puget Sound area and the full conference isn’t in the cards, the hackathon-only pass exists for exactly this reason.
You don’t need a travel budget. You don’t need a hotel. You need an evening or two, a laptop, and an interest in building something real with the people who build the tools.
Being on the Microsoft campus after hours, working through a build with engineers, MVPs, and other developers in the room, is a different kind of experience than reading docs at your desk. The conversations are better. The unblocks are faster. The work sticks.
If you’ve been meaning to get more hands-on with Microsoft Foundry, GitHub Copilot, or agent-based development, this is a low-friction way to do it. Grab the hackathon-only pass, show up Tuesday night, and see where the build takes you.
The case for sending more than one
The single best decision a dev lead can make about this event is to send people in pairs or small groups. Two developers from the same team, in the same sessions, building together at night, will return with a shared frame of reference and the start of something your org can actually use. One developer returning alone has to re-explain everything to skeptical teammates, and most of what they learned will quietly evaporate.
If you’ve been waiting for the right reason to get a few of your developers to Redmond, this is it. They’ll learn from the people building the tools, build alongside the community, and come back with working code your team can keep improving.
And…. if you have an active Visual Studio Pro or Enterprise Subscription, don’t forget to login to my.visualstudio.com for your exclusive conference discount code.
Build, compete, and win.
