These rules sit alongside the Unfair Weekend Event and Website Terms, the Code of Conduct and the Privacy Policy. If anything here conflicts with the Terms, the Terms apply. Unfair Weekend is organised by ISM University of Management and Economics, Gedimino pr. 7, Vilnius, Lithuania.

Dates

  • Hacking period: Thursday, November 12, 2026, 18:30 to Saturday, November 14, 2026, 20:00 (Vilnius time, EET).
  • Demo day: Sunday, November 15, 2026, from 12:00.

Eligibility

  • Only participants accepted to Unfair Weekend 2026 through Luma, who take part in person in Vilnius, are eligible. Every member of a team must be an accepted participant.
  • Organisers, judges and pre-judges can't win prizes.
  • ISM course submissions. Students of ISM's Fundamentals of Digital Products Design course who are not taking part in the hackathon may submit remotely for their course grade. These are course-only submissions, not official hackathon entries. The same rules, deliverables and deadline apply, except that they may start building from Monday, November 9, 2026. In the submission form they must answer "No, ISM course submission only (not participating, remote)" and list every team member's full name and email. Course-only submissions are not eligible for prizes, partner benefits, the public vote or the finals. ISM students who take part in Unfair Weekend in person are regular participants.

Teams

  • Solo or teams of up to 6. Teams of three tend to do best.
  • Each person can be on one team, and each team submits one project.

Project and submission requirements

  • Build it here. Your project must be started at the event, after hacking starts on Thursday, November 12, at 18:30 (ISM course submissions: from Monday, November 9). Ideas, research, sketches and talking to users beforehand are fine. Open-source libraries, frameworks, public APIs, templates, public datasets and AI tools are allowed.
  • Disclose pre-existing work. Any code, design or content you or your team made before kickoff must be disclosed in the submission form. Undisclosed pre-existing work can lead to disqualification.
  • Code access. Submit a GitHub repository link. The repo must be public, or private with GitHub user Nedomas invited as a collaborator. We may review the commit history and ask questions to confirm the project was built during the hacking period. If you can't show that, the project may be disqualified.
  • Required materials. A complete Devpost submission with project description, GitHub link, team name, demo video (3 minutes max, YouTube or Vimeo), every team member added, and the build-period confirmation.
  • Deadline. Submit by Saturday, November 14, 20:00 Vilnius time. Late or incomplete submissions won't be judged. A Discord post, live demo or message to an organiser doesn't replace a Devpost submission.
  • Your project must not infringe anyone else's rights, and must not include confidential information or other people's personal data. Use fictional or consented sample data.

Judging and winner selection

  • Round 1: pre-judges (Vaida Bitvinskė, Domas Bitvinskas, Kipras Vaičekauskas and Eigirdas Žemaitis) review every eligible submission and select 10 finalists, announced on Sunday, November 15, at 10:00.
  • Public vote: from Saturday, November 14, 20:30, every eligible submission is open to a public vote at unfairweekend.com/voting. We show the live leaderboard at the demo day opening. Voting closes during the demo day break, when we announce the five most-voted teams that are not among the 10 finalists. Those five teams pitch after the break. Organisers may disqualify votes that look automated or bought.
  • Round 2: the 10 finalists and the five public-vote teams pitch live on Sunday, November 15, from 12:00. Judges score them on technical execution, product design, potential impact and originality.
  • Special prizes are chosen by the partner that awards them. Most Tokens Saved is decided by condense's public leaderboard.
  • Judges' decisions are final, except where we find a clear error, conflict, ineligibility or rule violation.

Prizes

  • Cash team prizes are divided equally among the eligible team members listed in the final Devpost submission, unless the whole team unanimously instructs us otherwise in writing before payout.
  • Non-cash prizes are allocated as described for each prize. Unless a prize says it's for every team member, the stated quantity is the total for the team.
  • Partner prizes are subject to the partner's own terms, eligibility rules and account requirements. The condense sword is for participants aged 18+. The ISM Founders Hub residency is for ISM students only.
  • Winners must provide the identity, contact, tax and banking information we reasonably need to pay out. Winners are responsible for any taxes on their prizes.
  • We may withhold or reallocate a prize if a winner is ineligible, breaks the rules or doesn't complete fulfilment steps on time.

Intellectual property

You keep ownership of what you build. By submitting, you give the organisers a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to view, show, record and share your submission materials to run, judge, document and promote the event. Hackathon discussions, judging and demos are not confidential.

Code of conduct

The Code of Conduct applies to everyone, all four days, on site and online. Breaking it can mean disqualification.