Redhawk Builds 2026 is an education-first fintech hackathon designed for approximately 100 students from Miami University. The event follows a "Learn Friday. Build Saturday. Pitch Sunday." format, where teams of 3–5 participants will tackle 30 distinct problem statements using creativity, data, and technology.
When & Where The event takes place in person on November 6–8, 2026, at the McVey Data Science Building, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Schedule & Workshops On Friday, during the networking expo, attendees will participate in four workshops split into two rounds. Each participant must attend two sessions: * Round 1: "Getting Set Up / Starter Kit" and "Banking/Consulting Fireside." * Round 2: "Building a Solution from Thoughts and Financial Data + Documents."
What to Build & Submit Participants are required to build an original education-first fintech project that addresses one of the 30 provided problem statements. Public libraries and APIs may be used as needed. Submissions must include: * A working demo * A repository link (created or made available after Saturday, November 7 at 10:00 AM ET) * A project description and list of team members * A demo video no longer than 2 minutes
Teams must disclose which data and integrations are real versus mocked.
Prizes Hosted by Sigma Eta Pi (SEPi), the Miami Banking Club, and RedHawk Applied AI, with lead sponsorship from the John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship (Farmer School of Business, Miami University). The total prize pool of $3,500 is distributed as follows: * 1st Place: $2,000 * 2nd Place: $1,000 * 3rd Place: $500
Judging Criteria Projects will be evaluated based on the following criteria: * Working solution (25 points) * Problem/business relevance (20 points) * Accuracy/trustworthiness (20 points) * Usefulness/usability (15 points) * Pitch/demo (10 points) * Originality/execution (10 points)
Venue
McVey Data Science Building, United States