Rules
& terms.

Teams and tracks

• Team size: participants can compete solo or in teams of up to 4 members.
• Participants need to identify themselves either as a student or as a professional entrant:
  • To enroll as a student, an individual must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program in one of the universities identified in our application form as a "university hackathon node".
  • All other participants will need to sign up as professionals. During registration, professionals will also need to associate themselves with a "university hackathon node". We recommend they select either one that is close to them geographically or one by which they are affiliated (e.g. being alumni).
  • At this stage we cannot accommodate mixed student and professional teams. We also cannot accommodate mixed node teams.
• Participants may submit multiple projects. Awards are per project, not per person or team.
• Participants do not need to have any prior quantum computing experience.
• Participants need to be at least 18 years old.

Eligible countries

Participants can be based in any of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Sept 28

Week of September 28th: registration opens

Oct 05

Week of October 5th: optional AMA with the hackathon committee

Oct 06

11:00 ET — registration closes

Oct 09

19:00 ET — build window starts

Oct 11

19:00 ET — build window ends, submission deadline

Oct 12

Week of October 12th: local judging is complete *

Oct 19

Week of October 19th: global judging is complete; global and local winners are announced

* University nodes can plan at their own discretion in-person events to share local results and/or demo all participating projects.

Every project must

• Use the Qiskit framework
• Follow industry best practices on UI accessibility
• Run on IonQ's quantum simulator
• Be published and runnable on Qollab.xyz on an MIT license before the submission deadline
• Have a project page on Qollab.xyz covering what the submission does, what problem it explores, how to run it, and other information to enable others to understand, replicate, or extend it
• Be built during the hackathon window. Pre-existing projects, prior coursework, or private work started before the kickoff are not eligible.

Themes

Projects should leverage quantum computing's unique attributes and cover one or more of the following themes:

Quantum Impact — solve real-world problems with quantum + classical computing. Take on a real challenge in logistics, manufacturing, space, finance, energy, or another industry using a hybrid quantum-classical approach. Choose a relevant public dataset, build a strong classical baseline, then identify where a quantum subroutine can make a difference. Show us the impact — from better solution quality to improved efficiency, accuracy, or other measurable gains.

Quantum Playground — use quantum computing to build something playful, artistic, or unexpected. Turn quantum mechanics into a creative medium. Build a game, compose music, generate art, design an interactive experience, or invent something we haven't imagined yet. The challenge: make quantum science an essential part of the experience, using concepts such as superposition, interference, entanglement, or measurement in a way that goes beyond simply generating randomness.

Quantum Unlocked — make the hardest ideas in quantum computing click. Quantum computing is full of fascinating ideas that can be difficult to visualize and understand. Pick a timely topic, such as quantum error correction, fault tolerance, quantum networking, or algorithms, and find a creative way to teach it. Build an interactive demo, game, animation, visualization, or GUI that turns a complex concept into something intuitive, engaging, and memorable.

Projects that don't fall under one of these themes are still welcome and eligible for placement awards (1st/2nd/3rd and node-level prizes), but will not be eligible for Theme specialty awards.

Beyond the tutorial bar

Each submission must go beyond a standard reference implementation or tutorial-level exercise and demonstrate at least one of the following:

• A novel application or problem context (e.g., applying an existing technique to a specific domain)
• A technical extension (e.g., noise/error mitigation, parameter optimization, comparative benchmarking)
• An original analytical or educational contribution (e.g., a genuinely new way of visualizing or explaining a quantum phenomenon)

The judging panel will assess these traits as part of the Novelty & Creativity and Technical Execution rubric criteria. Panels may score a submission at 0 on these criteria, independent of other scores, if it fails to meet this bar.

Local judging

• If there are fewer than 10 projects submitted, the judging panel will evaluate all node entries and will advance the top 3 to the global judging process.
• If there are 10 or more submitted projects, the judging panel will provide teams with the following awards — and all three advance to the global judging process:

Regardless of the number of projects submitted, the judging panel for each node will also have the discretion to advance up to one project for each of the specialized global awards: Most Novel / Creative, Best of Theme, Most Impact, Best Documentation. A project can advance to the global judging phase both for overall placement (top 3 spots) and as a candidate for a specialized award.

Global judging

The global judging panel will score all submissions advanced from university node judging panels using the same rubric and will provide teams with the following awards:

Specialty awards: Most Novel / Creative, Best of each of the three themes, Most Impact, Best Documentation. A project can win both a placement prize and a specialty award.

Select teams may receive additional funds, computing resources and other awards at the discretion of Qollab, IonQ and/or any other participating sponsor. University nodes can and are encouraged to add supplemental prizes at their own discretion to reward student-specific effort.

Appeals

All scoring and award determinations are final and not subject to appeal.

The sole exception is disqualification: a participant or team disqualified under the Originality & Code of Conduct section may submit a written appeal within 24 hours of notification, addressed to hello@qollab.xyz. Appeals are limited to disputing the factual basis for disqualification (e.g., a claim that the work was in fact original, or that an eligibility determination was made in error). A designated reviewer, separate from the original judging panel, will issue a final decision within 5 business days. That decision is final and not subject to further appeal.

No reallocation of disqualified awards

If a team or project is disqualified, whether before or after an award is announced, that award or advancement slot is withdrawn and is not reassigned to the next-highest-scoring team. This applies to both:

• Placement and prizes: a disqualified team's cash, compute, or specialty award is withdrawn and not given to the runner-up.
• Advancement: if a disqualified project would have advanced from local to global judging (or from global judging to a final award tier), that slot is withdrawn and not backfilled by the next-ranked project. The relevant node or round simply advances one fewer project.

Return of distributed awards

If disqualification is determined after an award has already been paid out or compute credits issued, the participant or team agrees to return the full cash award and forfeit any unused compute credits within 30 days of notification. Qollab reserves the right to pursue recovery of distributed funds and to bar the individuals involved from future Qollab hackathons.

Outages over 12 hours during the build window

• Qollab will communicate the outage and expected resolution time via Slack as soon as reasonably possible.
• At Qollab's discretion, the build window and/or submission deadline may be extended by a period reasonably proportional to the outage duration, applied uniformly across all nodes.
• If an extension is not feasible (e.g., an outage occurs very close to the original deadline), Qollab may instead accept late submissions with a documented outage-impact statement, at the judging panel's discretion, without penalty to the affected team's score.
• Qollab is not obligated to extend the deadline for outages under the stated threshold, brief or intermittent issues, or problems isolated to a single participant's local setup (e.g., their own internet connection).

Participants agree to

• Release code and documentation under an MIT license
• Make their projects available on Qollab for 12 months
• Include the following attribution on their project: "This effort is supported by Qollab & IonQ"
• Provide a payment method in the chance they win a monetary award

Award winners additionally agree to

• Allow Qollab and IonQ to feature their work and profile on marketing activities
• Agree they are solely responsible for tax reporting
• Post at least once on their social channels about their participation in the hackathon