B2Hackathon

Empower the next founder before they know they're a founder.

CSR-grade AI starter kits for competition participants. White-label ideation programs for ecosystem enablers. One feeder lane into B2Startup.

Every hackathon cohort in MENA ships prototypes. Very few ship production-grade AI-native MVPs, the tooling is too far from the starting line, and the mentorship too generic. We close that gap as a CSR commitment, and we license the same capability to ecosystem enablers as a white-label program. No fees to participants. No commercial extraction at the ideation stage. The output is better builders, a stronger Saudi AI funnel, and, downstream, the cleanest deal flow we have into our B2Startup Co-Builder program.

Why now

The 2025 to 2027 Year-of-AI window is peak hackathon activity in Saudi Arabia, LEAP, DeepFest, Misk cohorts, SVC Pi, Wa'ed, Tuwaiq capstones, and university innovation competitions are running at national scale. "One Million Saudis in AI" creates the mass literacy demand; the enablers running it need a tech-backbone partner that shows up as CSR rather than as a sponsor-logo. This is that lane, opened this year, while the national narrative is primed.

What you get

Two modes, one kit

Mode A (CSR): participants access the starter kit + mentorship hours for free during the competition. Mode B (white-label): ecosystem enablers license the same capability to run their own branded ideation programs. The underlying tooling is identical; the audience and commercial model differ.

Arabic-first, sovereignty-ready by default

Every starter kit ships with Arabic-first UI primitives, RTL-aware components, PDPL/NCA-aware deployment scaffolds, and open-core access to Skyline (MCP gateway), Trellis (engineering scaffold), and Rabbit SDK where payments are in scope. Participants can ship a compliant, bilingual MVP from zero in 48 to 72 hours.

Measured mentorship: not demo-day theatre

Structured office-hours during the competition window with our engineers and BDFLs rotating as domain mentors. Capped per event so every conversation is high-signal. We also ship a measurement layer to enablers: kit adoption, MVP ship rate, continuation rate 30 days post-event, and B2Startup conversion, the dashboard enablers actually want for their boards.

Pipeline to B2Startup: but only on opt-in

Top-performing teams from every cohort are invited to an exploratory B2Startup conversation. Never implicit, always explicit. Per Business Rule BR-006, the CSR lane carries zero commercial terms during the event. And per BR-007, every white-label licensing contract includes the referral option so our investment feeds the Venture Engine downstream.

How we engage

Shape: Two engagement shapes. (Mode A: CSR): no fees, no equity, no invoices to participants. They get the kit + mentorship; we earn goodwill and, on opt-in, the cleanest possible B2Startup pipeline feed. (Mode B, white-label): annual 12-month program license to the ecosystem enabler; co-branded delivery as "Powered by Projex Labs"; measurement dashboard included; referral-option clause to Projex Labs for top performers in every contract.
Duration: CSR cohorts: event window (typically 48 to 72h) + 30-day follow-on support. White-label: annual licensing cycles with quarterly cohort cadence.
Deliverable: (CSR) participants shipping production-grade AI-native MVPs using our kit; top performers invited to B2Startup conversation. (White-label) enablers running a branded ideation-stage program at their scale with our technical backbone, measurement dashboard, and pipeline feedback loop.

Context we work in

Misk Foundation / Misk 500, entrepreneurial cohorts
SVC (Saudi Venture Capital), program arms running ideation-stage challenges
Wa'ed (Aramco entrepreneurship): hackathon + CSR-lane partner
Tuwaiq Academy · Saudi Digital Academy, capstone and bootcamp cohorts
LEAP / DeepFest: the national AI conference hackathons
SDAIA: Qiyas AI challenges and sector-specific national competitions
KAUST TAQADAM · KFUPM · KSU · KAU · PNU, university innovation offices
Corporate CSR programs (Aramco, SABIC, stc), challenge-commissioning partners