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Diiirect Hack · Edition 04 — Bio × AI · diiirect

Edition 04UpcomingBiology + Machine Learning

Bio × AI — San Francisco.

Name: Diiirect Hack · Edition 04 — Bio × AI
Start: 2026-07-12T18:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-07-14T20:00:00-07:00
Location: Ginkgo Bioworks · The Bayfront Loft

Build at the seam between code and biology.

Presented by

AAnthropic
GGinkgo Bioworks

WhenJul 13 → 15, 2026Where Ginkgo Bioworks · The Bayfront LoftFormatin-person

Starts in

days

hours

min

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87120 spots33 left

Apply to this edition See the schedule

The challenge

Compress the wet-to-dry loop.

Pick a real bottleneck in modern biology — protein design, single-cell analysis, lab automation, drug-target prediction — and ship a tool that a working lab could use on Monday. Sponsor labs will be on-site to advise on what's actually painful.

Constraints

Open-source the project under any OSI license at the end
Use at least one model from a sponsor (OpenAI, NVIDIA BioNeMo, Anthropic, Latch)
Ship a working demo — slides without a demo do not qualify
Real biological data only (synthetic test data is OK for development)

Deliverables

GitHub repo with README + setup
6-minute live demo + 2 minutes Q&A
One-page write-up: problem, approach, what you would build next

Judging criteria

Scientific impact35%
Engineering quality25%

The prize

$0 pool. One winner.

Cash plus the doors that open behind it — investor intros, lab time, press, and lifetime access to the alumni network.

01 / Winner$0

Lab time at Ginkgo Foundry for 8 weeks
Intro to Andreessen Horowitz Bio
Coverage in TechCrunch + STAT

02 / Runner-up$15,000

Anthropic enterprise credits
NVIDIA BioNeMo credits

03 / Runner-up$7,000

OpenAI credits
Latch SDK lifetime access

Best wet-lab integration$3,000

Octant Bio mentorship

For every accepted applicant

Direct intro to every sponsor company hiring
Lifetime access to the Diiirect Hack alumni network
1-year Diiirect Pro for every accepted applicant

Run of show

The weekend, hour by hour.

Friday, Jul 12
1. 17:00
  Doors + check-in
2. 18:00
  Opening keynote — Aiyana Mehta
  Dr. Aiyana Mehta
3. 18:45
  The brief drops
4. 19:30
  Team formation + dinner
5. 21:00
  Hacking starts
Saturday, Jul 13
1. 08:00
  Breakfast
2. 11:00
  Office hours: Anthropic
3. 13:00
  Lunch + sponsor mingle
4. 15:00
  Lightning talk: Latch SDK
  Sara Holguín
5. 20:00
  Dinner + late-night demos
6. 23:00
  Open mic + DJ set
Sunday, Jul 14
1. 08:00
  Breakfast
2. 12:00
  Submissions close
3. 13:00
  Demos begin (6 min each)
4. 17:30
  Judges deliberate
5. 18:30
  Awards + closing remarks
6. 19:30
  Afterparty

Judges

Who's in the room with the scorecards.

Operators and researchers from the sponsor companies, plus independent voices from the field. Final say on awards.

Dr. Aiyana Mehta
Head of Computational Biology · Ginkgo
Lior Shapira
Research Lead · Anthropic
Dr. Kenji Watanabe
Director, BioNeMo · NVIDIA
Sara Holguín
Founding Engineer · Cradle
Marcus Drew
Partner · a16z Bio
Dr. Priya Sankar
PI · Stanford ML×Bio · Stanford

Made possible by these teams.

In the room hiring

These teams will be there with offers.

Hiring panels at every edition. The people whose work catches their eye get a follow-up the week after.

Ginkgo Bioworks
Recursion
Isomorphic Labs
Octant Bio
Inceptive
Cradle

Rules

The few we enforce.

Teams of 1–4. Solo entries welcome.
No code written before the brief drops. Open-source libraries are fine.
No outside collaborators — your team builds it themselves.
Disclose every model, dataset, and library used.
Be kind. Be honest. Be useful.
The judges have final say. They may ask you to defend your demo.

Questions

The short answers.

Do I need a biology background?

Half the room is engineering-only. We'll match you with a co-builder on the bio side at team-formation Friday night.

Do I need to bring a team?

Apply solo or as a pre-formed team of up to 4. Solo applicants get matched on Friday.

Is travel covered?

Travel and lodging are covered for accepted applicants from outside the SF Bay Area, capped per region.

What does it cost?

Free for accepted applicants. Sponsor companies cover the venue, food, and prizes.

Is it remote-friendly?

No — this edition is fully in-person. The whole point is the room.

How are sponsor companies hiring?

Every sponsor sends a small hiring panel. They'll be in the venue all weekend and reach out to the people whose work they liked.

Explore

Get started

Bio × AI — San Francisco.

Compress the wet-to-dry loop.

Constraints

Deliverables

Judging criteria

$0 pool. One winner.

For every accepted applicant

The weekend, hour by hour.

Friday, Jul 12

Doors + check-in

Opening keynote — Aiyana Mehta

The brief drops

Team formation + dinner

Hacking starts

Saturday, Jul 13

Breakfast

Office hours: Anthropic

Lunch + sponsor mingle

Lightning talk: Latch SDK

Dinner + late-night demos

Sunday, Jul 14

Breakfast

Submissions close

Demos begin (6 min each)

Judges deliberate

Awards + closing remarks

Who's in the room with the scorecards.

Dr. Aiyana Mehta

Lior Shapira

Dr. Kenji Watanabe

Sara Holguín

Marcus Drew

Dr. Priya Sankar

Made possible by these teams.

These teams will be there with offers.

The few we enforce.

The short answers.

Make your case.

Bio × AI — San Francisco.

Constraints

Deliverables

Judging criteria

For every accepted applicant

Friday, Jul 12

Doors + check-in

Opening keynote — Aiyana Mehta

The brief drops

Team formation + dinner

Hacking starts

Saturday, Jul 13

Breakfast

Office hours: Anthropic

Lunch + sponsor mingle

Lightning talk: Latch SDK

Dinner + late-night demos

Open mic + DJ set

Sunday, Jul 14

Breakfast

Submissions close

Demos begin (6 min each)

Judges deliberate

Awards + closing remarks

Afterparty

Dr. Aiyana Mehta

Lior Shapira

Dr. Kenji Watanabe

Sara Holguín

Marcus Drew

Dr. Priya Sankar