The 2026 Ashby Prize in Computational Science Hackathon is a two‑day, high‑energy competition hosted at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), bringing together University of Illinois students from computing, biomedical, and engineering disciplines to tackle a real‑world cancer research challenge. Participants spend the weekend applying AI, machine learning, and multimodal foundation models to cancer‑related pathology and clinical data, working directly at the intersection of computing and medicine. Teams receive curated datasets and state‑of‑the‑art pretrained models, along with expert guidance, enabling them to prototype tools that could meaningfully improve clinical workflows.
Students form teams of two to five—with at least one member from the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science—and compete for cash prizes of $3,000, $1,500, and $750. The event is co‑organized by the Cancer Center at Illinois and the Center for Artificial Intelligence Innovation, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and hands‑on innovation. After the hackathon weekend, teams refine their projects for flash presentations and judging, showcasing solutions that blend computational power with biomedical insight.
We encourage you to sign up soon using this Registration Link. If you already have a team be sure to have the team lead complete the form and include the name and contact information for the full team.
Registration closes on October 1, and the hackathon runs October 17–18, 2026 at NCSA.
For more information go HERE