B2Hackathon

Empower the next founder before they know they're a founder.

CSR-grade AI starter kits for competition participants. White-label ideation programs for ecosystem enablers. One feeder lane into B2Startup.

Every hackathon cohort in MENA ships prototypes. Very few ship production-grade AI-native MVPs — the tooling is too far from the starting line, and the mentorship too generic. We close that gap as a CSR commitment, and we license the same capability to ecosystem enablers as a white-label program. No fees to participants. No commercial extraction at the ideation stage. The output is better builders, a stronger Saudi AI funnel, and — downstream — the cleanest deal flow we have into our B2Startup Co-Builder program.

Why now

The 2025–2027 Year-of-AI window is peak hackathon activity in Saudi Arabia — LEAP, DeepFest, Misk cohorts, SVC Pi, Wa'ed, Tuwaiq capstones, and university innovation competitions are running at national scale. "One Million Saudis in AI" creates the mass literacy demand; the enablers running it need a tech-backbone partner that shows up as CSR rather than as a sponsor-logo. This is that lane — opened this year, while the national narrative is primed.

What you get

Two modes, one kit

Mode A (CSR): participants access the starter kit + mentorship hours for free during the competition. Mode B (white-label): ecosystem enablers license the same capability to run their own branded ideation programs. The underlying tooling is identical; the audience and commercial model differ.

Arabic-first, sovereignty-ready by default

Every starter kit ships with Arabic-first UI primitives, RTL-aware components, PDPL/NCA-aware deployment scaffolds, and open-core access to Skyline (MCP gateway), Trellis (engineering scaffold), and Rabbit SDK where payments are in scope. Participants can ship a compliant, bilingual MVP from zero in 48–72 hours.

Measured mentorship — not demo-day theatre

Structured office-hours during the competition window with our engineers and BDFLs rotating as domain mentors. Capped per event so every conversation is high-signal. We also ship a measurement layer to enablers: kit adoption, MVP ship rate, continuation rate 30 days post-event, and B2Startup conversion — the dashboard enablers actually want for their boards.

Pipeline to B2Startup — but only on opt-in

Top-performing teams from every cohort are invited to an exploratory B2Startup conversation. Never implicit, always explicit. Per Business Rule BR-006, the CSR lane carries zero commercial terms during the event — and per BR-007, every white-label licensing contract includes the referral option so our investment feeds the Venture Engine downstream.

How we engage

Shape: Two engagement shapes. (Mode A — CSR): no fees, no equity, no invoices to participants. They get the kit + mentorship; we earn goodwill and, on opt-in, the cleanest possible B2Startup pipeline feed. (Mode B — white-label): annual 12-month program license to the ecosystem enabler; co-branded delivery as "Powered by Projex Labs"; measurement dashboard included; referral-option clause to Projex Labs for top performers in every contract.
Duration: CSR cohorts: event window (typically 48–72h) + 30-day follow-on support. White-label: annual licensing cycles with quarterly cohort cadence.
Deliverable: (CSR) participants shipping production-grade AI-native MVPs using our kit; top performers invited to B2Startup conversation. (White-label) enablers running a branded ideation-stage program at their scale with our technical backbone, measurement dashboard, and pipeline feedback loop.

Context we work in

Misk Foundation / Misk 500 — entrepreneurial cohorts
SVC (Saudi Venture Capital) — program arms running ideation-stage challenges
Wa'ed (Aramco entrepreneurship) — hackathon + CSR-lane partner
Tuwaiq Academy · Saudi Digital Academy — capstone and bootcamp cohorts
LEAP / DeepFest — the national AI conference hackathons
SDAIA — Qiyas AI challenges and sector-specific national competitions
KAUST TAQADAM · KFUPM · KSU · KAU · PNU — university innovation offices
Corporate CSR programs (Aramco, SABIC, stc) — challenge-commissioning partners