Boundless Founder Presents Eastside Seattle · July 11–12, 2026

Build fast. Validate smarter.

Most hackathons celebrate speed — who can ship the most features in a weekend. We celebrate signal. Who can find the strongest evidence that their idea actually matters to real people.

Apply Now What is this?

100 spots · Application-only · Free · Applications close June 30

Editorial · On why this is different

This isn't a hackathon.
It's a startup simulation.

You can build an app in a weekend. AI lets you ship code in hours. The hard part was never the code — it was knowing whether anyone wanted what you built.

The Founder Sprint gives you 48 hours, the same validation methodology senior founders use, and a room full of people trying to do the same thing you are. Leave with a prototype, real evidence, and a business thesis you actually believe.

HRS

Of building

100

SPOTS

Hand-picked

$5K

CASH

+ $18K credits

DAYS

July 11–12

Day 01

The Forge

Saturday, July 11 · 11am–7pm

A workshop. Six sessions. One methodology you'll use for the rest of your career.

11:00 AM
Doors open Coffee, badges, and the first handshakes.
12:30 PM
The Velocity Trap Why shipping fast isn't the same as shipping right.
1:30 PM
Finding Problems Worth Solving The framework senior founders actually use.
2:30 PM
Rapid Validation Turn a hunch into evidence in hours, not weeks.
3:30 PM
Building with the BFStack Claude, Cursor, v0, Lovable — composing an AI-native toolkit.
4:30 PM
Team Formation & Idea Sprint Find your co-founders. Pick your problem.
5:15 PM
Experiment Design Workshop Leave with a real plan for Sunday.
7:00 PM
Dinner + networking The quiet conversations where real teams get built.

Day 02

Launch Day

Sunday, July 12 · 8:30am–7:15pm

Ten hours to build. Two mentor rounds. A science fair. Five finalists. One winner.

8:30 AM
Breakfast + setup Arrive sharp. The clock is real.
9:15 AM
Build sprint begins Ten hours. Real users. No excuses.
11:00 AM
Mentor round 1 Office hours with operators who've shipped.
2:00 PM
Mentor round 2 Pressure-test before you commit to the pitch.
4:00 PM
Code freeze Step back. Stage the evidence. Breathe.
4:30 PM
Science Fair Walk-around demos. Judges meet every team.
5:45 PM
Top-5 final demos 3 minutes pitch. 2 minutes Q&A. That's it.
6:45 PM
Awards Cash, credits, mentorship — and a story to tell.

Who this is for

Orbital datacenters.
Autonomous farms.
Humanoid robots.
Fusion. BCIs. You.

You don't need a CS degree to build a startup anymore — you need AI fluency and an idea worth the risk. Priority goes to builders swinging at problems that feel two sizes too big. Bring the audacious ones — robotics, digital ag, climate, longevity, frontier compute, you name it.

See every domain we welcome

70%

Senior college students

UW, Seattle U, Bellevue College, UW Bothell, UW Tacoma — any major, any field.

20%

Fresh graduates

0–2 years out in Seattle tech. Ready to build your own thing.

10%

Young professionals

25–30, considering the leap. Bootcamp grads, side-project builders.

Stakes

$5K cash. $18K credits.
Mentorship that compounds.

1st Place

$3,000

$10K in credits
3 months mentorship with Mo

2nd Place

$1,500

$5K in credits
2 months mentorship with Mo

3rd Place

$500

$3K in credits
1 month mentorship with Mo

Plus side awards:

Best Pivot
Best Hustle
Crowd Favorite
Best Use of AI

The room

Judges & mentors,
starting to land.

A panel of operators, founders, and investors who've actually shipped. First confirmations below — more rolling out through the weeks ahead. If you're a Seattle-area operator and want to mentor, .

Judge
Taimur Rashid

Managing Director, Generative AI Innovation Center · AWS
Judge
Alaa Badr

Board Director, Investor & Advisor · ex-Uber, Intel, Oracle
Judge
Riham Mansour

Distinguished Engineer · Meta · ex-Google, Microsoft
Judge
Jonathan Chang

Investor, Seed-Stage Tech · Change Paradox Ventures

More judges & mentors announcing soon.

Sponsor partners announcing soon.

We're working with AI labs, cloud platforms, and local firms to back this event. Want to put your product in front of 100 hand-picked builders?

How it works

Three steps. No surprises.

01
Fill out the Luma form

Submit your interest — free, no commitment. About you, your team size, what you want to build, why now. 5–7 minutes.
02
We review

Every application is read by a human. Rolling decisions right up to the June 30 deadline.
03
Accepted? See you in Bellevue

You get an acceptance email confirming your seat. We reveal the venue to confirmed builders ahead of July 11.

Questions

Things people ask first.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. Some of the best teams will pair a domain expert with someone AI-fluent. If you can describe what you want to build to an AI and iterate, you belong here.

How big can my team be?

Teams of 2–4 founders. We're not accepting solo applications this year — Day 1 is too compressed to also stand up a brand-new team around a brand-new idea, and the teams that do best at the Sprint show up with their co-founders already aligned.

I don't have a team yet.

Find one before you apply. As soon as you start an application, we'll share access to the Co-Founder Matching channel — use it to meet other applicants looking for teammates, then submit together. Applications close June 30, so don't wait.

Is the event really free?

Yes. We're not charging for the first Founder Sprint — your only ask is to show up if you're accepted. We hold 100 spots and every seat matters, so please only apply if you can commit to both days.

What should I bring?

Your laptop. Your chargers. A headset if you do your best thinking with music. We cover food, coffee, snacks, and credits for whichever AI tools you use.

Is there a theme or track?

No theme, no track, no preferred category. Past audacious ideas in our orbit span:

Robotics & physical work — humanoid robots, surgical robotics, autonomous farm robots, construction, underwater robotics.
Bio, health, longevity — longevity drugs, gene editing, synthetic biology, mental health at scale.
Climate, energy, materials — carbon capture, geothermal, grid-scale storage, self-healing materials.
Agriculture & food — vertical farms, lab-grown meat, precision ag, cellular dairy.
Frontier compute & space — orbital datacenters, physical AI, fusion, BCIs, quantum sensors.

If your idea fits in any of these — or doesn't and is still audacious — you belong here. You're judged on the strength of your evidence, not the category.

Will the venue be accessible?

Yes. Venue will be ADA-compliant with wheelchair access and quiet rooms. Let us know on your application if you have specific needs.

Run by

The humans behind it.

Mohamed F. Ahmed

Founder, Boundless Founder
Azeez Idris

Co-organizer
Ahmad ElSwify

Co-organizer

The crew

People making this happen.

Operators, students, and post-grads volunteering their weekend so 100 builders can ship something real. 16 crew on board.

Syed Shayaan Ali

UW ECE · freshman
Zobir Tarin

UW CS · junior
Sarah Hanafy

UW CS · sophomore
Ikram Bennour

UW Informatics · sophomore
Zawad Ahmed

In industry
Daaniya Junejo

UW Informatics · senior
Monisa Ansha

MSU Eng. Management · in industry
Hafsa Abdinur

In industry
Saalik Ahmed

UW CS · senior
Mubasheer Joban

UW Foster · recent grad
Shruthika Balasubramanian

UW CS · junior
Yahya Daud

UW Bothell · junior
Ayesha Khan

UW HCDE · senior
Habiba Elswify

UW CS · junior
Yousef Gomaa

UW CS · recent grad
Kevin Kim

UW CS & Econ · junior

Get a head start before you apply

The Sprint runs on three things you can start building today.

The part where you decide

100 spots.
Hand-picked.
Apply now.

We review every application. Not everyone gets in. Apply now through June 30 — the form below is free and takes five minutes.

Having trouble with the form? Open the application on Luma →

Build fast. Validate smarter.

This isn't a hackathon.
It's a startup simulation.

Two days. One methodology.
Zero excuses.

The Forge

Launch Day