SPACE x SEA Hackathon (IoT, Space, Maritime, Defense, Climate) by H*QUOTIENT, Entrepreneurs First, and CRV
- Date
- 2025-06-27
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Host
- H*QUOTIENT
About this event
The hardest real-world problems rarely stay inside one industry. This hackathon is built for people who want to work at the edges where space, maritime, IoT, defense, and climate overlap, and where new products can move from ambitious concept to something testable in a room full of serious builders. If you think the most interesting opportunities are hiding in sensors, infrastructure, autonomy, resilience, logistics, and dual-use technology, this is the right room to be in. Hosted by H*QUOTIENT, Entrepreneurs First, and CRV, the SPACE x SEA Hackathon brings together founders, engineers, researchers, and operators in San Francisco for an in-person day of building. The focus is practical: identify meaningful problems, form strong teams, and turn ideas into working prototypes, technical demos, or sharp, credible project concepts. What Is This? This is an in-person hackathon centered on the convergence of IoT, space, maritime, defense, and climate. Rather than treating these as separate sectors, the event is designed around the reality that they increasingly depend on one another: sensing, communications, mapping, monitoring, autonomy, energy, security, and supply chains all connect across domains. Expect a builder-first format. The point is not to sit through a long conference schedule; it is to spend concentrated time making progress with other technically minded and mission-driven people. Whether your angle is satellites, ocean systems, hardware, software, climate resilience, or defense-tech infrastructure, the event gives you a setting to test ideas against adjacent disciplines. Because the event is backed by organizations known for working closely with ambitious early-stage talent and startups, the overall energy will likely be high-agency and execution-oriented. You should come ready to contribute, collaborate, and explain why your idea matters in a real operational context. What to Expect The day begins Friday, June 27 at 10:00 AM PDT in San Francisco with an in-person gathering of participants interested in frontier technology and applied problem-solving. A hackathon format typically means early time for meeting people, sharing problem areas, and forming teams around the strongest concepts. From there, expect the core of the event to be hands-on building time. Depending on your background and team, that could mean: defining a specific use case at the intersection of space and sea building an IoT-enabled prototype or software workflow developing a concept for sensing, tracking, monitoring, or communications exploring defense or climate applications with clear operational value turning a rough idea into a demo, technical architecture, or product direction You should also expect plenty of cross-functional conversation. Some participants will think from a hardware lens, others from software, operations, climate impact, autonomy, logistics, or national security. That mix is one of the main advantages of the event: better ideas emerge when technical depth meets real-world constraints. A strong hackathon also creates room for quick feedback loops. Even without assuming a specific formal agenda beyond the start time and in-person format, you can expect the day to reward people who pitch clearly, scope tightly, and iterate fast with teammates and peers. Why Attend If you are interested in building in frontier sectors, this event offers a faster way to test whether an idea has technical and market traction. Instead of thinking about space, maritime, defense, and climate as broad categories, you get to pressure-test a specific problem with people who may understand the infrastructure, the tooling, and the stakes. This is also a valuable room for meeting potential collaborators. Great hackathons do more than generate demos; they reveal who is strong at execution, systems thinking, design, embedded engineering, product judgment, and founder-style momentum. If you are looking for future teammates, co-founders, or simply people worth staying in touch with, that matters. You should attend if you want to leave with more than inspiration. Useful outcomes from a day like this can include: a prototype or proof of concept a better-defined startup idea a team you want to keep working with sharper insight into real problems across sea, space, and climate systems exposure to a community that cares about hard tech and consequential technology For people building in climate and defense-adjacent areas in particular, the event creates a rare overlap: you can talk seriously about resilience, infrastructure, monitoring, and security without having to translate why these sectors matter. That saves time and raises the quality of discussion. Practical Details This is an in-person event in San Francisco, USA, which means the value of being there physically is a big part of the experience. You will get the most out of it if you arrive ready to participate actively, introduce yourself early, and spend the day in build mode rather than observer mode. The event starts on Friday, June 27 at 10:00 AM PDT. Since it is a hackathon, plan your day around sustained collaboration and focused work. If you have tools, demos, notes, datasets, hardware ideas, or a problem statement you care about, bring them prepared enough to explain quickly. A few ways to show up well: come with one or two concrete problem ideas, not ten vague ones be ready to join an existing team if the right fit appears bring a laptop and anything essential to your workflow practice a short explanation of your background and what you want to build think in terms of usable prototypes, not perfect finished products If your work or curiosity sits anywhere between sensing, infrastructure, autonomy, climate resilience, ocean systems, satellite-enabled applications, or defense-relevant technology, this event is designed to help you find the people and the momentum to build something real.
Who should attend
This is for people who want to build on consequential problems, not just talk about them. - You are a **founder, aspiring founder, or startup-minded builder** looking for a strong team, a sharp problem space, or a fast way to test an idea in public. - You are a **software engineer, hardware engineer, product builder, or technical researcher** excited by IoT, sensing, communications, autonomy, data systems, or infrastructure. - You care about **space, maritime, defense, or climate** and want to work on the overlaps between them rather than staying inside one narrow category. - You are drawn to **real operational use cases** such as monitoring, logistics, resilience, security, mapping, tracking, or environmental intelligence. - You want to meet people who are serious about **hard tech and applied innovation** in San Francisco, and you prefer rooms where execution matters more than hype. - You already have a problem statement or rough concept you want to prototype, or you are ready to join a team and help turn someone else’s strong idea into something credible by the end of the event. If you like ambitious technical work with practical stakes, you will likely feel at home here.