VinUni AI Hackathon 2026Printing a new issue...
AI Hackathon 2026LeaderboardVol. 2026AI Hackathon 2026LeaderboardVol. 2026№ 40
From your hometown story --> To your own AI creation. In eight sessions, build a website that tells the story of where you live, with AI that answers from sources you have checked.
№ 40
AI Hackathon 2026
From your hometown story. To your own AI creation.
VinUni AI FutureBuilder is a four-week, fully online AI and web development program from VinUniversity for students in grades 11–12. Across eight live sessions, each student builds a public website that tells the story of their hometown: its history, culture, people, or a place that matters to them. The site includes an AI assistant that answers visitors' questions only from sources the student has checked. No coding experience or STEM background is required.
The program's purpose is to turn students who mostly consume AI into thoughtful, responsible creators. Through one real project, they learn to identify real needs, handle information responsibly, respect cultural context, evaluate AI output critically, and build useful web experiences with lasting value for their communities.
FutureBuilder serves two strategic goals for VinUniversity.
The first is growing international admissions. The program is fully online and has no entry barrier, so it gives high-school students in Vietnam and abroad a real first experience of learning at VinUni. That builds a pipeline of motivated applicants for the VinUni Admissions program.
The second is recruiting student builders. Grades and test scores say little about whether a student can make things. FutureBuilder identifies talented makers by what they actually ship: a live product, a demo, and a reflection. The strongest can then be invited to keep building at VinUni.
The program is open to grade 11–12 students in Vietnam and other countries, with no programming experience needed. It runs for four weeks, with eight live online sessions of 120 minutes each.
In sessions 1–7, 55 minutes of teaching is followed by a 5-minute break and 60 minutes of hands-on practice. Each student builds their own product, with peer support in groups of three. Session 8 is reserved for demos and reflection.
VinUni instructors, teaching assistants and Lab Coaches support students throughout. Before class, short videos cover how to join, where to find materials and how to use the tools. After class, students revisit materials, keep improving their product, and can join optional support hours.
The curriculum draws on Code.org's AI Foundations and MIT's Computational Action frameworks, adapted into eight project-based sessions.
Week 1 – Discover (Sessions 1–2). Students explore AI, generative AI and large language models. They choose an audience, collect sourced local stories, and use a coding agent to build a first version of their website. Outcome: their own source materials and website v1.
Week 2 – Create (Sessions 3–4). Students learn the parts of an application and where it runs. They improve the interface with AI help, publish the site on Vercel, and watch classmates try it. Outcome: a clear interface, a public link, and real user feedback.
Week 3 – Integrate AI (Sessions 5–6). Students connect a chat to an LLM through an API and experiment with instructions. They then use retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), system prompts and grounding so the AI answers from their project materials. Outcome: a working AI chat that cites sources and acknowledges missing information.
Week 4 – Share (Sessions 7–8). Students apply AI ethics to improve content, privacy and user experience. They present a live demo, discuss feedback, and take part in an Investment Hackathon using simulated investment points. Outcome: a tested product, an evidence-backed improvement, and a personal reflection.
In short, the arc is: understand AI → build a website → publish → add AI chat → refine and demo.
Every student builds an AI Heritage Explorer, starting from one question: "What about where I live should the world discover?"
The result is a personal website with sourced content about a place the student cares about, plus an AI assistant for visitors. The assistant is designed to be trustworthy. It retrieves relevant material from the student's own checked sources, grounds its answer in that evidence, cites where the information came from, and says clearly when there isn't enough evidence to answer. Students learn RAG and grounding as the practical way to make AI reliable, not as abstract concepts.
Every student finishes with three things:
The program is responsible by design. Grounded answers, cited sources and an AI-ethics review are part of the curriculum rather than an afterthought.
It is rooted in community. Every project tells the story of a real place, with respect for its cultural context, so students create value for where they come from.
It is proven and open to all. It builds on established frameworks from Code.org and MIT, needs no coding background, and is fully online, so any curious student can join.
Start dates, tuition and registration details have not yet been announced. Program resources, including the course overview, LMS and operations guide, and eight-session syllabus, are available in Vietnamese at vinuni-ai-futurebuilder.vercel.app.
Learn AI. Tell your story. Create value for your community.